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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24377539">Dancing in the Rain</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annaelle/pseuds/Annaelle'>Annaelle</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Unbecoming Everything You Are Not [7]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Asgard (Marvel), Avengers Family, Avengers Missions, Becca Barnes Needs a Hug, Becca Is Also Pregnant But Less Grumpy, Brock Rumlow Is A Manipulative Bastard, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Canon-Typical Violence, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Domestic Avengers, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/M, Gaslighting, HYDRA are assholes, Hydra, Kidnapping, M/M, Manipulation, Miscarriage, Multi, People, Pepper Is Grumpy and Pregnant, Pregnancy, Protective Avengers, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Steve Rogers-centric, THIS IS THE ONE, Thor Needs a Hug, Thor-centric, V.A. meetings, WE'VE MADE IT HERE, kind of</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 01:14:41</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>38,645</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24377539</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annaelle/pseuds/Annaelle</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Becca’s children, Tony’s children, Sharon’s children—if she ever chose to have any—would be her great-grandchildren, and she would love them like she would have if they’d been Michael’s. </p>
<p>She leaned her shoulder into Steve’s when he sat beside her, taking her small, wrinkled hand in his. </p>
<p>“Almost feels perfect,” he said quietly, watching Becca and Becky with a very familiar gleam in his eye. “Doesn’t it?” He looked at her and squeezed her hand carefully—so very carefully. </p>
<p>Peggy knew everything he wasn’t saying. </p>
<p>They were the only ones left of their merry little band, and… she understood what he meant. They still had family, and it felt almost like home—but nothing ever would without the others. Without her Daniel and her Angie, and without Steve's Bucky and their Howlies. </p>
<p>“Yes,” she agreed, leaning her cheek against his shoulder, taking comfort in his presence. “Almost.” </p>
<p> </p>
<p>PART OF A SERIES, BUT CAN BE READ AS A STANDALONE. </p>
<p>— Steve Rogers &amp; Thor-centric. Stucky endgame (We mAdE iT). Canon Divergent. Avengers Family.</p>
<p>(I'm bad at summaries, forgive me.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Clint Barton/Phil Coulson (mentioned), James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Loki/Thor (mentioned), Pepper Potts/James "Rhodey" Rhodes/Tony Stark, Thor/Rebecca Barnes (OFC)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Unbecoming Everything You Are Not [7]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/917445</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>55</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. The One Where Steve Comes Out</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Welcome to the piece you've all been waiting for so very patiently! </p>
<p>This piece /can/ be read as a standalone piece, but should you have any questions if you do, be sure to ask in the comments, I'll reply as soon as I can :) </p>
<p>This entire work has been written and edited already, and will be updated on Mondays :D </p>
<p>As always, much thanks to Juulna for putting up with me! </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Lots of love, <br/>Annaelle</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>Dancing in the Rain</strong>
</p>
<h2>Life is not about how you survive the storm<br/>It is about how you dance in the rain<br/>—Unknown author</h2>
<h1>Chapter One</h1>
<p>
  <strong>
    <em>REBECCA BARNES RESIGNS AS EARTH’S AMBASSADOR TO ASGARD AFTER <br/>PREGNANCY LEAK</em>
  </strong>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Move comes only days after The New York Times published an article ‘outing’ Rebecca Barnes’ pregnancy, based on the say-so of Barnes’ former obstetrician, who says she was fired after Barnes filed a baseless complaint about the care she provided. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>In a move that was predicted by several political experts following the tell-all article, Rebecca Barnes confirmed today that she would be resigning from her post as Earth’s Ambassador to Asgard—less than a year after her initial appointment. […]Ambassador Rebecca Barnes’ decision today came after several politicians from across the globe expressed their concern about Barnes’ ability to remain impartial and to represent Earth. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Barnes released a pre-recorded statement, in which she confirms that she is, indeed, pregnant, and that she will be stepping down from her post as ambassador. […]also distances herself from the statements made by her former obstetrician, confirming she chose to switch to a different doctor due to irreconcilable differences in opinion.</em>
</p>
<p><em>“I have always taken [her duties as ambassador] very seriously,” Barnes said in her statement, “and it is with a heavy heart but a clear conscience that I now resign from those duties. My relationship with the Aesir now runs far deeper and more intimately than anyone thought it would, and as such, there would always be a fear that my opinions and actions would be biased. This can be a </em>very<em> good thing, but it’s also only right that we do the correct thing and have an Earth-focused ambassador. Someone focused on the big picture instead of… well, instead of the small, the personal.”</em></p>
<p>
  <em>[…]mixed response to Barnes’ announcement and resignation. Various media outlets have latched onto the story and have begun spinning various iterations of the same question: now that Barnes is—most likely—expecting long-term boyfriend and Prince of Asgard’s first child, will the couple finally be tying the knot? And, if so, does that make Barnes the first human princess of Asgard? Will their child(ren) be recognized as an heir to the Asgardian throne? </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“[…]must be something in the water over at the Avengers Tower,” talk show host Jay Leno also joked during his latest broadcast. “First Potts, now Barnes—what’s next, Captain America going for his daily Central Park run with a stroller?”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Leno’s remarks were likely partially inspired by recent pictures of Captain America reading “What to Expect when You’re Expecting” and other varied baby books in several coffee shops and parks across Manhattan and Brooklyn, and tweets by Pepper Potts detailing the Captain’s dedication to helping her out however he can, more so than even her own partners. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>[…]not clear when a replacement ambassador will be elected. There is much discussion amongst the various governments of the world about which government, if any single one, should be allowed to elect one of their own, or if the many governments of the world should form a council of representatives not unlike the European Union or the United Nations solely dedicated to communications and relations with extra-terrestrial nations. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>—Max Colchester and Jason Douglas, The New York Times, “Rebecca Barnes Resigns as Ambassador”, January 2016</em>
</p>
<p>——————</p>
<h3>Chicago, Illinois, United States of America</h3>
<h3>April 12<sup>th</sup>, 2016</h3>
<h3>Steve</h3>
<p>“Captain America!”</p>
<p>“Captain America, a statement, please?”</p>
<p>“Captain America, anything to say to reports that the Avengers orchestrated this attack to be able to save the day again, to get good press going for them?”</p>
<p>“Captain, any word on why Thor hasn’t joined the fight today?”</p>
<p>“Captain, captain, is it true Thor has threatened to cut ties with Earth if Rebecca Barnes’ child really is yours instead of his?”</p>
<p>There were a passel of shouting reporters standing by the barricades, barely held back by several police officers in—somehow—pristine blue uniforms, cameras flashing and microphones held out as far as they were able to reach.</p>
<p>Steve heaved a sigh, unclipping his helmet and running a hand through his dirty, sweat-soaked hair before he chanced a look at himself. He was covered from head to toe in fine dust and dirt, splashes of blood streaking across his thighs and chest—that seemed about right.</p>
<p>The giant insects that some wannabe supervillain had set loose on an unsuspecting Chicago had been hardy and <em>mean</em>, and it had taken him and the other Avengers—minus Becca, who’d been benched as soon as they all learned she was pregnant and was now holed up in the Tower with Pepper, shouting at them over the comms, and Thor, who had been called back to Asgard—well over seven hours of constant fighting to exterminate them all, even after Natasha had gotten her hands on said wannabe supervillain.</p>
<p>He was tired, he was sweaty and covered in dirt and blood, and all he wanted was to go home to the Tower and take a hot shower and then sleep for twelve hours—but <em>someone</em> had to talk to the media, and it looked like it was going to be him.</p>
<p>He sighed again and trudged towards the reporters, mentally trying to brace himself for the vastly inane questions he’d be getting about his supposed love affair with Becca that had now culminated in her pregnancy and his passionate tryst with Pepper, that had somehow also resulted in pregnancy.</p>
<p>Because apparently, in the twenty-first century, it seemed entirely implausible to the reporters that people actually remained <em>faithful</em> to their partners, rather than sleep around with the first reasonably attractive person in the near vicinity.</p>
<p>It was ridiculous.</p>
<p>Pepper had told him to ignore the rumours, that they’d go away as soon as the next big news broke, but it bothered him nonetheless. He didn’t like that people thought he was the kind of person that was okay with cheating on his friends, didn’t like that people thought him capable of something like that—and he hated most of all that the media still insisted on pairing him only with <em>women</em>.</p>
<p>It wasn’t like he was being subtle, or that his bisexuality was a secret.</p>
<p>He went to Pride parades dressed in a Captain Bi-merica suit every year, volunteered at several LGBT+ shelters and donated almost half of his Avengers income to various charities dedicated to at-risk LGBT youth. <em>Everyone </em>in his life knew that he and Bucky had been together, and everyone in the war had known too—even <em>Peggy</em> had known.</p>
<p>It’d been the worst kept secret in the U.S. Army—Captain America and Bucky Barnes were queer for each other, and entirely unapologetic about it too.</p>
<p>He wasn’t sure how <em>that</em> tidbit of knowledge had gotten lost over time when they remembered the fucking <em>song</em>.</p>
<p>The shouting got more frantic the closer he got, and he narrowly resisted the urge to turn on his heel and run the other way as fast as his serum-enhanced legs could carry him.</p>
<p>“Everybody,” he said, raising his voice just enough to be heard over the din. “I don’t have much time before I’m needed back, but I can tell you that we have successfully contained the threat and have taken the culprit into custody. We are currently coordinating relief efforts for affected families with local authorities. We expect displaced families to be able to return to their homes sometime tomorrow.”</p>
<p>“Captain,” one of the bottle-blonde women with far too much make-up caked on her cheeks demanded, “Is it true this attack was orchestrated by S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers to round up more sympathetic press in the wake of your scandalous affair and love child with Rebecca Barnes and Pepper Potts?”</p>
<p>Steve blinked at her.</p>
<p>“Tell me you're shitting me,” he deadpanned, barely even registering the way all of the reporters gasped. “Fifteen people lost their lives today,” he continued, maintaining direct eye contact with the woman who’d asked this fucking <em>stupid</em> question. “<em>Fifteen</em> people. Do you even know their names? I do. And I’m going to remember them for the rest of my life, because we didn’t get here fast enough—and not because of some imaginary sex scandal that exists absolutely nowhere but in your imagination, but because we’re only human too. We’re not here for better press, we’re here to make sure that those fifteen people are avenged. We’re here to make sure that no one else falls victim to one person’s greed, one person’s anger. <em>Not</em> because you’ve somehow got it in your head that I’ve been sleeping with the girl that may as well have been my own niece, if Bucky hadn’t died and if I hadn’t gone in the ice, and if I’d been allowed to <em>keep</em> the love of my life.”</p>
<p>It took a moment for his words to sink in, even for him, and though he wanted to groan and curse himself for losing his temper, he stood by his words.</p>
<p>He'd pretended to be their perfect little soldier—a dancing monkey—long enough.</p>
<p>He was fucking <em>done</em>.</p>
<p>He shot the wide-eyed, stunned woman an icy glare and said, “No further comment,” before he turned on his heel and walked away the way he’d come.</p>
<p>
  <em>——————————</em>
</p>
<p>
  <strong>
    <em>Cuthian: </em>
  </strong>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Uuuhhhmmm… So tell me someone else saw <span class="u">this</span> interview with Cap today?!?! @juuls, @betheflame ARE YOU SEEING THIS?</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>            <strong>juuls:</strong></em>
</p>
<p>
  <strong>
    
  </strong>
  <em>YES @cuthian, I’m definitely seeing this. HOLY CRAP. We called it—we SO called it.   </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>            <strong>betheflame:</strong></em>
</p>
<p>
  <strong>
    
  </strong>
  <em>I SAID he’d slip it in during an interview! I WIN THE BET!</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>                        <strong>KlaudiaForPresident:</strong></em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I’m so glad that we have someone as good and morally strong as Steve Rogers to represent us finally, but can we please talk about the way he was basically bullied into coming out of the closet? </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>There’s no way he felt comfortable sharing something so personal like this—just look at his face at <span class="u">4:33</span>, he said it in the heat of the moment, not because he was planning to tell us; and why would he? </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>It’s not like the media has been kind to him about his personal relationships since he’s been in the future. He’s been linked to nearly everyone he’s ever had a conversation with, and we need to acknowledge that that’s not cool. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Imagine how UNCOMFORTABLE it must be for him to constantly have to defend that he’s not sleeping with a girl he sees as a little sister, or a cousin—family. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Let’s just let him have his privacy, okay? </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Even if we’re all ecstatic that he’s admitted his—potential—bisexuality, let’s not forget that he still lost the person he saw as the love of his life. He’s probably still grieving. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Let’s allow him to grieve and not push.   </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>#Captainbimerica #stucky #totallycalledit #birepresentation #thisismycaptain #captainamerica #psa #leavethepoormanalone #mediasucks</em>
</p>
<p>——————</p>
<h3>Lagos, Nigeria</h3>
<h3>April 15<sup>th</sup>, 2016</h3>
<h3>Steve</h3>
<p>“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” he told Becca after he’d switched his comm to their private channel, watching as Wanda, Nat, and Pietro moved into position on the small square between the Center of Infectious Diseases and the local police station. “Feels too easy.”</p>
<p>Becca hummed in agreement, and Steve didn’t need to see her to know she was sitting cross-legged on one of the extra-wide, extra-comfortable desk chairs Tony had designed especially for Pepper and Becca, frowning at her screen, keeping an eye on the security footage the same as him. She’d been on desk duty since she’d hit twelve weeks in the pregnancy, when the small but unmistakable baby bump became visible to everyone.</p>
<p>Thor had—understandably—been entirely unable to focus on the battles they fought while Becca was still in the field with them, and after he’d taken a harpoon to the arm because he’d been too busy covering Becca to cover his own ass, the rest of the team had voted unanimously to have Becca on desk duty for the rest of her pregnancy.</p>
<p>Becca, while grumpy, had not put up much of a fight about it.</p>
<p>“I’ve ran all the background checks imaginable on our informant though,” she replied calmly. “Nat and I went over all of the intel with a fine-tooth comb. It’s legit, Steve, you know that.”</p>
<p>Steve harrumphed grumpily and crossed his arms over his chest. “That doesn’t mean it’s not a trap,” he retorted, watching as Wanda ordered a cup of tea, keeping her—by now recognisable—face covered with the clever sweep of her hair and the slightly dramatic make-up she and Natasha had spent almost an hour applying. Pietro was hovering just out of sight in the alleyway, nearly vibrating out of his skin, as he always did when he had to stand still for longer than a few minutes.</p>
<p>“Oh, it’s definitely a trap,” Becca said in his ear cheerfully. “But that just means we’re making them nervous—means we’re closer than we thought we were.”</p>
<p>Steve sighed.</p>
<p>She was right, of course. The intel had come rather unexpectedly—while they’d been able to clear Sharon of the murder she’d been accused of, it’d been more by chance than by design of any kind. They’d stumbled across footage of Sharon at a gas station nearly forty miles away at the time of the murder, and through the footage several witnesses who swore she’d been there.</p>
<p>The matter had been dropped relatively quickly after that.</p>
<p>Still, whoever was running this show was <em>good</em>—good enough that Tony’s various algorithms and even J.A.R.V.I.S. hadn’t been able to pick up on much more than the vague pattern that Natasha had initially noticed. There were more cases like Sharon’s, and though the investigation against her had been dropped, and she had clearly had a lot of fellow S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and all of the Avengers in her corner, there were <em>a lot </em>of rumors still flying around about Sharon’s supposed involvement with her informant’s untimely and rather gruesome death.</p>
<p>Steve still wasn’t sure how it’d benefit a shadowy terrorist organisation to discredit one agent—no matter how good Sharon was—but he assumed there was a reason.</p>
<p>There were at least half a dozen other cases that J.A.R.V.I.S. and Nat had flagged as suspicious that hit mysterious dead ends: one former A.I.M. scientist turned S.H.I.E.L.D. informant who’d been on the verge of revealing something big vanishing off the face of the Earth; a STRIKE team getting massacred after being given faulty information on an infiltration mission that should’ve been easy; and a U.S. senator who’d been known for her progressive style changing her tune entirely seemingly overnight…</p>
<p>Even the sudden suicide of a popular, if somewhat reclusive, wealthy murder mystery writer had pinged on their radars—the man had been researching the inner workings of police stations and its politics, and had, one week prior to his apparent suicide, rewritten his will to leave his entire family out of it, donating his entire estate, worth an estimated 60 million dollars, at least, to assorted police stations in his home state, and several police officers specifically.</p>
<p>Something was going on, on a large and likely unprecedented scale, and Steve wasn’t sure they were ready to figure out just how big this thing was.</p>
<p>They even had a mole in S.H.I.E.L.D.</p>
<p>One relatively high up the chain of command too, if the sort of information they had access to was any indication—Sharon’s real identity had been classified to hell and back for <em>years</em>. Her deep-cover missions were more intense than Natasha’s half the time, and she hadn’t gone by her own name for longer than a few weeks since she’d joined S.H.I.E.LD.</p>
<p>“All set,” Becca said quietly, breaking him from his musings, drawing his attention back to the security footage, showing Natasha having moved into position too.</p>
<p>“Okay,” Steve nodded. “Here we go.”</p>
<p>He switched back to their shared comms channel and watched as Wanda added a sugar packet to her teacup with calculated, graceful movements, stirring the spoon in the hot liquid before she sipped, taking the time to glance around the square surreptitiously as she did.</p>
<p>He barely suppressed a proud smile as she clocked several hidden gunmen—two of which he hadn’t noticed himself—and whispered their location to her brother, who moved to get them out of the way before anyone could so much as blink.</p>
<p>“Alright,” he said into the comms as soon as Pietro had taken the men out of commission. “Good job, guys. Wanda, keep going; what do you see?”</p>
<p>“Standard beat cops,” Wanda said slowly, talking into her cup so no one would see her lips move. “Small station, quiet street. Pretty good target, I can see why they picked it.”</p>
<p>Steve nodded. “There’s an ATM in the south corner, which means…”</p>
<p>“Cameras,” Wanda finished, glancing briefly towards the aforementioned corner before she returned her attention to the building in front of her. The info they’d gotten pointed to either the little police station or the Center for Infectious Diseases being hit by the as-of-yet nameless terrorist group they’d been chasing for the past six or so months.</p>
<p>Steve personally thought it’d be the CfID, not the little police station, but since the intel hadn’t been clear on it, they couldn’t risk losing their only chance to get their hands on whoever was planning this.</p>
<p>Especially considering they couldn’t find anything more concrete than a vague suspicion that things weren’t adding up. They—<em>Pepper</em>—had negotiated their presence there with the Nigerian government, keeping their interference on the absolute downlow.</p>
<p>Not even S.H.I.E.L.D. had been told.</p>
<p>“Both cross streets are one way,” Becca added over the comms, and Steve watched as Wanda and Pietro, once again hidden in the shadows, checked the street reflexively.</p>
<p>“Compromised escape route,” Pietro muttered, accent thicker still than his sister’s.</p>
<p>Steve nodded along. “Yep. Means our guy doesn’t care about being seen—not afraid to make a mess on the way out. A <em>big</em> departure from their usual M.O.”</p>
<p>It <em>was</em> true—these guys seemed to operate entirely from the shadows in every other way, and Steve wasn’t sure what it meant for them if they decided they were ready to step out of said shadows.</p>
<p>“It’s suspicious,” Becca insisted. “See that Range Rover halfway up the block, Wanda?”</p>
<p>“Yeah, the red one?” Wanda sipped her tea again. “It’s cute.”</p>
<p>Nat chuckled across the comms and said, “It’s also bulletproof. Probably private security, which means more guns, which means more headaches for someone—<em>probably</em> us.”</p>
<p>“Plates aren’t registered,” Becca piped in. “J.A.R.V.I.S. is hacking into a few more databases to see if he can find that make and model listed anywhere, but it’s slow-going.” She huffed in annoyance. “There’s way too many red Range Rovers in Nigeria, what the hell.”</p>
<p>“Eyes on the target,” Steve reminded them sternly. “This is the best lead we’ve had in months. I don’t want to lose it.”</p>
<p>“Aye aye cap’n,” Natasha quipped semi-seriously, and Steve laughed along with the others despite himself.</p>
<p>“Tony’s almost there, in case you guys need him,” Becca reminded them, “and he’s being whiny about not being on the same comms channel, so if I let him in, will you play nice?”</p>
<p>Steve gasped playfully. “Why, Becca, I’m offended by the implication. I <em>always</em> play nice.”</p>
<p>“You’re a little shit, Rogers,” Becca told him, before something <em>clicked</em> and Tony’s voice became audible. “—and I mean, I can totally dig the seriousness of this mission, I’m cool, I’m just saying a little AC/DC never hurt anyone.”</p>
<p>“A little AC/DC would <em>definitely</em> hurt now,” Steve replied, eyeing the street before him again.</p>
<p>“Capsicle!” Tony exclaimed. “Congrats on the coming out! Papers are <em>all over</em> it. The U.S. is losing its shit. I applaud you, my good man. I’ll order you a cake when we get home. Bi-pride colors and everything. We can invite Aunt Peg and Aunt Becky. Also, I think FOX News is having a meltdown. Or going on lockdown. Not sure which would be more entertaining, honestly,” he hummed happily.</p>
<p>Steve stopped short. “What?”</p>
<p>“What?” Natasha and Wanda and Pietro echoed.</p>
<p>“Right,” Becca said slowly. “You left right after Chicago.”</p>
<p>Steve’s stomach <em>sank</em>. “Oh, <em>fuck</em>,” he said empathically.</p>
<p>Tony gasped theatrically. “Captain, <em>language</em>.”</p>
<p>“Shut up, Tony,” Steve bit out, before sighing and rubbing a hand over his forehead. “How much of a headache is this gonna be? It just kinda slipped out.”</p>
<p>“Eh,” Tony said, surprisingly gentle. “I’ve caused bigger headaches. I think the conservative, racist part of the country is having a meltdown, because they can’t use you as a poster-boy for their ass backwards shit anymore, but most people are cool with it. Applauding you for being brave enough to come out for who you and Barnes were—and talking shit about the reporter that bullied you into making that <em>grandiose </em>speech in the first place.”</p>
<p>Steve groaned.</p>
<p>“Steve,” Becca said quietly. “You’re fine. No one is going to judge you, and people that do are really not worth your time or your consideration.”</p>
<p>“Uh,” Tony said. “While I totally agree, and hate to break up the moment… There’s a large group of people moving in the CfID—like abnormally. I can only see heat signatures, but I’m willing to bet these guys are armed. I’m thinking our terrorists might already be here.”</p>
<p>“Becca,” Steve barked, moving out the door and down the stairs of their look-out apartment before Tony had even stopped talking.</p>
<p>“Hacking into security cams now,” Becca replied immediately.</p>
<p>“Pietro, get Natasha and Wanda inside,” Steve ordered. “Then come back for me. Don’t be seen.”</p>
<p>“Yep,” Pietro said shortly, and Steve heard the slight rush of fast-moving air as the boy started moving.</p>
<p>By the time Steve’d reached street level, the other three were gone, and he barely had time to blink before Pietro blurred back into sight before him, grinning wildly. “Ready, Captain?” he asked, before putting his hands on Steve’s shoulders and <em>moving. </em></p>
<p>The world blurred and moved, and his head spun wildly before Pietro came to a stop, hidden behind a large pillar, only a few feet from where Nat and Wanda stood, readying themselves for a fight.</p>
<p>Nat’s Widow’s Bites were sparking, and Wanda’s hands were already encased with that tell-tale ominous red energy. Steve checked that the straps of his shield were tight enough on his arm, and then nodded at the two women. “Definitely body armor. Possibly AR-15s—likely hand guns and knives too. I make seven hostiles,” he whispered, glancing towards the men dressed in black tac gear.</p>
<p>Natasha huffed and moved forwards, launching herself into the air by a graceful jump off a chair—she landed on two of the men, taking them down in a tangle of limbs and electric current, their choked off screams echoing eerily in the building.</p>
<p>Steve moved before the other men had had the chance to react to Nat’s sudden attack, lobbing the shield towards two of the other men, who had raised their guns to Nat immediately, knocking both of them clean off their feet. The man that stood next to them shouted in alarm, but before he could do so much as raise his gun, he was tackled to the ground by a blur of movement, and then fastened in place by an eerie red glow that spread, quickly, to encompass all other men, freezing their limbs in place.</p>
<p>“Good job,” Steve told Wanda when she appeared from behind the relative safety of the pillar, eyes glowing as red as the mist encompassing her hands.</p>
<p>“I can’t hold them long,” she told him calmly. “Natasha, you should cuff them so I can let go.”</p>
<p>Natasha was already moving, pulling handcuffs from wherever she managed to stash them in her skin tight outfit, when someone let out a strangled, “<em>Stop</em>!”</p>
<p>Steve spun around, finding one of the men had managed to move enough to pull his helmet off, revealing—</p>
<p>“<em>Brock?</em>” Steve said incredulously.</p>
<p>“What?” Becca demanded in his ear, as Natasha stepped up beside him, eyeing Brock Rumlow, who was held immobile by Wanda’s red magic in what looked like a <em>very </em>uncomfortable position, with a considering expression.</p>
<p> “What the fuck?” the other man demanded when Wanda released him after Steve nodded at her, collapsing on his knees before he managed to steady himself. “What the hell are you doing?”</p>
<p>“What are <em>you </em>doing?” Natasha countered. “No one is supposed to be here.”</p>
<p>“We got a tip,” Rumlow spat. “Jesus, Romanoff, we’re meant to catch some terrorist group that the higher ups are <em>really</em> interested in. You better fucking hope you didn’t scare them away! Now fucking let my STRIKE guys loose.” He glared at Wanda, who bit her lip and looked at Steve first, waiting for his approval before she did as Rumlow said and released the other men.</p>
<p>A chorus of groans and muffled curses followed their release, and a small part of Steve felt a little smug that Wanda had been able to keep at least ten guys—a full fucking STRIKE team—down without visibly breaking a sweat.</p>
<p>Take that, every asshole who ever dared imply she didn’t deserve her spot on the team.</p>
<p>“He’s telling the truth,” Becca said hesitantly. “I’ve got the paperwork here. J.A.R.V.I.S. just hacked into the S.H.I.E.L.D. servers. Orders came straight from Maria—probably from Fury or Pierce before it came to her. It looks legit, Steve. They got the same tip we did.”</p>
<p>Steve exchanged a glance with Natasha, who had her arms crossed over her chest, staring down each of Rumlow’s STRIKE guys with a blank expression that he knew was tailor-made to scare the shit out of even the bravest of men. Judging by their expressions, Rumlow’s guys may not be the bravest of men.</p>
<p>She just lifted one eyebrow at him, and Becca suggested, “Maybe tell him some of the truth?”</p>
<p>Steve exhaled slowly.</p>
<p>“We also got a tip,” he told Rumlow. “Couple of hours ago. It came directly to us, seemed urgent. We contacted the Nigerian government directly and flew in. We didn’t want to risk losing these guys.”</p>
<p>Rumlow scoffed. “So urgent you couldn’t notify S.H.I.E.L.D. at all?”</p>
<p>“Tell him we told Fury,” Tony butted in. “Becca, J.A.R.V.I.S. will make it happen.”</p>
<p>Steve didn’t question their decision to fudge the truth. They’d established Avengers Black Op on this entire mission for a reason, and much as Steve enjoyed beating the man up during his mandatory hand-to-hand combat sessions, Brock did <em>not</em> make the cut for trusted individuals.</p>
<p>Not even Sharon had made the cut.</p>
<p>“We notified Fury,” he said, shrugging. “Didn’t hear back from him, and the Nigerian government had already given us permission to be here, so…”</p>
<p>“Damn it. They should’ve run it through us, man,” Brock grumbled. “Could’ve saved us this whole thing.” He glanced toward the two men Steve had knocked to the ground and the man Nat had tased with her Widow’s bites, and groaned. “Paperwork’s going to be a <em>bitch</em>.”</p>
<p>Steve hung his head.</p>
<p>He hated to say it, but Brock was right, damn it.</p>
<p>“Get them out,” Rumlow told Rollins, who Steve had worked with on occasion, and a fresh-faced kid who was likely a new recruit, gesturing to the three men that were still on the floor. “Make sure they get medical attention and that you’re not seen.” He glanced towards Steve and the others and heaved a sigh, “tell Hill we got back up from the Avengers.”</p>
<p>“Actually,” Becca drawled, “Hill just sent me an Avengers Assemble alert. Looks like there’s… something going on a couple of miles from where you guys are. Some guy called…” she hesitated and then snorted, “Killmonger? I dunno, he’s American special ops, but he called in for help not even a minute ago, something about a crazy man with voodoo powers taking out his whole team. We’re the closest back-up he’s got.”</p>
<p>Steve groaned. “Alright. Tony, fly ahead, scope out the situation, see what’s what. Pietro—”</p>
<p>“Aye aye, Cap,” the young man quipped, before pressing a lightning quick kiss to his sister’s cheek and blurring out of sight.</p>
<p>“We got an Assemble alert,” he told Rumlow reluctantly. “Becca’s informed S.H.I.E.L.D. you need more back-up, but if anything goes sideways, hail us, yeah? Pietro or Stark can be here before you can even blink if you need them.”</p>
<p>Rumlow nodded. “Yeah. Let’s hope we haven’t managed to chase away our mark.”</p>
<p>“Let’s hope not,” Steve agreed, before turning to Nat and Wanda, nodding his head towards the exit.</p>
<p>He wasn’t sure how they’d managed to get their wires crossed so intensely, because he could’ve sworn J.A.R.V.I.S. had checked S.H.I.E.L.D.’s database for similar tips beforehand, but there wasn’t anything for it now. There was possibly something more going on, someone playing them all, pulling on their strings like they were nothing but puppets, but he didn’t have time to figure it out now.</p>
<p>Someone needed their help.</p>
<p>Rumlow, S.H.I.E.L.D., and everything else could wait.</p>
<p>———————</p>
<p>
  <strong>
    <em>Fox News (@FoxNews) 36 min.</em>
  </strong>
</p>
<p>
  <em>BREAKING: Captain America comes out of the closet? Has this national hero been lying to the country, or did he simply misspeak? Surely @captainRogers will clarify this misunderstanding soon.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <strong>
    <em>Steve Rogers — Captain America (@CaptainRogers) 2 min.</em>
  </strong>
</p>
<p>
  <em>@FoxNews Did I fucking stutter? </em>
</p>
<p>———————</p>
<h3>Brooklyn V.A. Medical center, Brooklyn, New York, United States of America<br/>April 20<sup>th</sup>, 2016</h3>
<h3>Steve</h3>
<p>Steve just barely managed to squeeze himself into the tiny little bathroom stall of the V.A. center with Becca, gamely holding his breath as well as Becca’s hair as she retched into the toilet after an unfortunate incident involving the snack table for the meeting and a stray sandwich with blue cheese.</p>
<p>“Ugh,” Becca groaned miserably, leaning back and wiping her mouth on a wad of toilet paper before dropping it in the toilet and flushing it. “I thought this part was supposed to be over.”</p>
<p>Steve smiled lightly and tugged her close so her head could rest back against his shoulder.</p>
<p>“From what I remember,” Steve said slowly, keeping his voice level and calm to help Becca calm down—because he remembered how much throwing up triggered Becca sometimes, and he knew how difficult the first few weeks of the pregnancy had been for her, how relieved she’d been when the morning sickness had finally abated—rubbing his hand over the swell of her stomach softly. “It can come up any time. My mom used to say it was because your senses are heightened, primed to notice anything that could be a danger to the baby.”</p>
<p>“That’s a nice thought, actually,” Becca nodded. “I don’t think I mind being sick if it keeps the baby safe.”</p>
<p>Steve smiled and leaned his cheek against Becca’s temple. “Well, I hope for your sake that you don’t have to be sick anymore.”</p>
<p>“Me too,” Becca hummed.</p>
<p>They sat quietly for a few more minutes before Becca gasped, suddenly, looking down at her belly with wide eyes. “Look,” she told him urgently, tugging on his arm urgently until he moved, and they were sitting opposite one another with their backs against the walls of the stall, Becca’s legs curled underneath her and Steve’s awkwardly stretched out.</p>
<p>Becca pulled up her shirt a little, revealing the pale expanse of her stomach, littered with little silvery stretch marks and a few dark, puckered marks that she tended to hide otherwise. Today, though, the marks seemed the last thing on Becca’s mind, because she grabbed his hand and pressed it to her stomach again, just next to her belly button. “Look,” she insisted.</p>
<p>Steve dropped his eyes to her stomach as well, and he couldn’t really stop the gasp that fell from his lips when, suddenly, the outline of what was clearly a tiny foot pressed out into Becca’s skin just above his fingertips, remaining there for a few seconds before it disappeared again. “Shit,” he laughed, looking up at his friend with a grin, “that’s so weird. And cool.” He looked down again, but the little foot did not make another appearance. “You’re actually growing a person in there,” he added breathlessly.</p>
<p>Becca snorted and shoved at him. “What, did you think I stuffed a watermelon under my shirt before now? You’ve felt them kick before.” She elbowed him in the side and chuckled, “You’ve read more of the parenting books than any of us have.”</p>
<p>“Well,” Steve spluttered, a little embarrassed, “<em>yeah</em>. But this is <em>different</em>.”</p>
<p>Becca laughed again, but it wasn’t mean or mocking, and Steve grinned too, despite himself.</p>
<p>“Steven? Rebecca?”</p>
<p>Thor’s voice was loud enough to drift through the walls even when he was clearly trying to be quiet, and Steve grinned at Becca when she perked up immediately.</p>
<p>“In here,” Steve said, raising his voice just a little—Thor’s hearing was just as good, if not better than Steve’s—as he moved to help Becca back to her feet.</p>
<p>Thor pushed open the door to the bathroom and leaned on the doorjamb, smiling at them lightly, although his forehead was creased into a slightly concerned frown. “Everyone alright?” he asked casually, reaching out to Becca as soon as she was within reach.</p>
<p>Becca grimaced but nodded, leaning into Thor’s touch gratefully. “Blue cheese,” she said, nose wrinkling in disgust, and Thor made a small sound of comprehension, needing no further explanation after the last time Becca had encountered blue cheese in the common room of the Tower, and instead rubbing his hand over her back in a soothing gesture.</p>
<p>“You ready, Steve?” Becca asked, turning back to him with a grin.</p>
<p>“Born ready,” he said confidently.</p>
<p>——————</p>
<p>Steve was absolutely <em>not</em> ready.</p>
<p>He fidgeted, his hands trembling just shy of imperceptibly when he took the microphone from Sam. The room was about as filled as it usually was for the Thursday V.A. meeting, but the thought of ‘sharing’ still reminded him of the feeling he’d had when Senator Brandt had first thrust him into the spotlight on a stage somewhere in Philadelphia, when he’d wanted nothing more than to run away, to hide so no one could <em>see</em> him ever again.</p>
<p>He’d been wishing to be seen for most of his life at that point, had wished that people would <em>see</em> and <em>notice</em> him, but it’d been nothing like he’d thought it would be.</p>
<p>He’d made a promise to Sam though, and he wasn’t going to back out.</p>
<p>Becca and Thor were tucked into a corner of the room, Thor’s hands absently rubbing across Becca’s belly while Becca smiled encouragingly. She’d shared with the group the previous week, and it’d broken Steve up to hear, first-hand, the things people had done to her—before, during and after her capture—but she hadn’t been the only one.</p>
<p>There’d been a young man, too young to have the same kind of shadows lingering behind his eyes that they all seemed to, who came up to her afterwards, who thanked her for sharing, and for reminding them that… that it <em>was</em> possible to build a life afterwards.</p>
<p>That it was possible to learn how to <em>live</em> and be happy again.</p>
<p>Steve had diligently pretended Becca wasn’t crying when they walked home, but he’d held her hand and hugged her close when she’d asked him to anyway.</p>
<p>He’d told himself that sharing what had happened to him might help someone else. He’d told Sam the same, and Sam had held him to it, inviting him up to speak after everyone who’d volunteered had had their chance to speak, because “<em>No one wants to follow </em>your <em>act, Rogers</em>.”</p>
<p>Steve swallowed thickly and glanced at the expectant, curious faces of their group. “Hi,” he finally said, voice cracking with nerves. “I’m sure all of you know who I am.” He grinned lightly and added, “I usually lurk in the back with my friend, eating all of the donuts, like the creepers we actually are.”</p>
<p>That got a couple of scattered laughs, and Becca shot him a thumbs up from her corner.</p>
<p>Steve exhaled and leaned forward, resting his elbows on the lectern that stood at the front of the room. “I’m Steve,” he began. “I’m thirty-two, and I went to war when I was twenty-four, and sometimes it feels like I’ve never left it behind. Sometimes it feels like I never will.” There were a few understanding murmurs, and something loosened slightly in his chest.</p>
<p>He <em>could</em> do this.</p>
<p>“I went to war because I had to,” he continued, chewing on his lower lip. “Because there were good, healthy people dying on the front lines every day, fighting to defend us, our families, and I was dying anyway, so what right did I have to do any less than them?” He swallowed thickly. “I was dying anyway, and I wanted my death to have more meaning than my life had.”</p>
<p>The room had gone utterly silent, and Steve didn’t dare look up, for fear he’d lose his nerve.</p>
<p>“It’s a funny thing,” he continued, “to be so aware of your own mortality. I wasn’t even very angry about the unfairness of it anymore. Buck—my—the love of my life,” he admitted, still a little shy to be so public about something so private, “he was angry. He was the sweetest guy you’d ever meet, charming and handsome and kind, but he was <em>so</em> fucking angry at God and the universe and whatever else there was, because I was dying, and there was nothing anyone could do about it… and then they called him to war too.”</p>
<p>Steve blinked back a tear, a little startled by how emotional he felt, by how <em>hard</em> recalling the memories was. “And he went,” he said. “He went, and what else could I do than <em>everything</em> I could to either follow him, or to die trying?” He looked up, briefly catching Becca’s shiny eyes before his gaze fell to Sam. Sam, who’d supported him, who hadn’t let their rough start at a friendship get in the way—who <em>understood</em> in a way even Becca never had.</p>
<p>“The machine they used to give me all of this—” He gestured vaguely at his body. “It looked like a coffin.”</p>
<p>There were a few gasps from the group, but no one interrupted when he continued, “And I thought it would be mine. There had been seventeen test subjects before me.” He looked down. “I was the only one to ever survive, but I didn’t know that when I went in. I thought I was going to be number eighteen, the one they could hopefully learn from, so they could help people.”</p>
<p>“Obviously,” he said with a weak smile, “it worked. And I went, and I fought, tooth and nail, for the life I’d been real eager to leave behind, for Bucky and his sisters, for his family—<em>my </em>family. I fought for everyone that couldn’t, for everyone we’d already lost, and for once, I felt like a hero.” He stopped and looked down, noting that his hands were shaking so bad he could barely hold the microphone without hitting himself in the face.</p>
<p>“When Bucky—the mission we were on—” He shook his head and lowered the microphone, breathing in deeply to regain some measure of composure. Because, while no one here would judge him, he wouldn’t be able to finish if he let himself cry now. “He saved my life, like he always did, like he’d been doing since we were both four feet tall and getting into fights with people twice our size. I got knocked down and he picked up my shield, and—” Steve choked lightly, tears running down his cheeks despite his best efforts to hold them at bay. “We were both nearly blown off the side of the train,” he said hoarsely. “I thought—God, for a second, I thought I had him. He managed to hang on by a railing, and I was <em>so</em> close. His—his fingers brushed past mine when it broke off and he fell.”</p>
<p>The room was deathly silent, and when he looked up, he saw that several other people were nodding, crying, <em>knowing</em>. “I almost fell,” Steve admitted. “I almost fell too. Sometimes I wish I had.”</p>
<p>He was quiet for a few seconds before he whispered, “Grief… Grief is a funny thing. Grief <em>shatters</em> something inside of you that you didn’t know <em>could</em> shatter, and it seeps into the cracks, like water that slowly freezes, slowly expands into ice until it’s all you can feel—until you can’t even remember what it felt like to live without the cracks, without the grief filling up that space. I didn’t… after Bucky fell, I lost my mind a little. I froze… <em>long</em> before I put the Valkyrie in the ice. I fought, and I killed, and I didn’t care that I was doing it, because every single Hydra soldier was one that was responsible for the love of my life dying alone at the bottom of a ravine. The Valkyrie…” He shook his head and sighed. “Putting down the Valkyrie was a relief, because at least it meant that whatever was going to happen, Bucky would be waiting for me on the other side.”</p>
<p>He swallowed. “And then I woke up here. And whatever soul, whatever heart I had left, it shattered further; the grief, the ice spread further, because <em>everyone</em> was gone. Everyone I’d ever known, everyone I’d ever loved—even the country I’d died for. Everything.”</p>
<p>He exhaled shakily and looked up, meeting Becca’s teary gaze, and managing a weak smile.</p>
<p>“I made it through. I made it through because I still had family that needed me, that missed me, that <em>knew</em> me, and that refused to give up on me even when I had.” He deliberately looked at every member of their group. “Including the Valkyrie, I tried to take my own life six times. I tried to leave, tried to give up what Bucky had died to give me—and I still think about it sometimes. I’m not always okay. I sit out missions that I know will trigger me, I have three different therapists, and I have an unrelenting support network. I’m lucky—so many of us don’t have all of that. But I want <em>you</em>, at least, to know that you do as well. I’m just one man, even with my name and reputation, and there’s only so much I can do—but when any of us, any of you need support, even if it’s just a shoulder to cry on…”</p>
<p>He shrugged one shoulder and smiled. “They’re a lot bigger and stronger than they used to be. I promise there’s room to help you shoulder your burden. I want you to know that you have that support. I thought I had no one for the longest time, even surrounded by friends and family, and I don’t wish that feeling on anyone.”</p>
<p>He looked down again and sighed. “The ice… the grief doesn’t go away,” he admitted. “Not really. But you learn. You learn to breathe with it, rather than against it, you learn how to <em>cope</em>, even when you can’t understand, and that’s all anyone can ask of you. Even on days when it feels like you’ll never leave the war behind, even when things are at its bleakest, there’s going to be better days. There’s always people that’ll care, that’ll miss you, that’ll need you.”</p>
<p>He squared his jaw and promised, “And when you have no one, I’ll be your someone. <em>We</em> will be your people. We’ll miss you. We’ll need you, and we’ll drag you through hell, to show you how good life is on the other side. You’re never alone.”</p>
<p>——————</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. The One With the Dinner Party</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hi guys! </p><p>For this chapter, I'd like to warn you to please read the tags carefully. <br/>There is a potentially triggering scene involving gaslighting and violence at the end of the chapter -- if you think that's something that might trigger you or that you'd prefer not to read, please stop reading when Brock Rumlow's scene starts and skip to the end notes, where I'll summarise the scene for you. </p><p>Thank you again to my lovely beta and to my roommate, who have dragged me through writing this entire piece. </p><p>And thank you for still reading! I love you all. </p><p>See you in the comments, and then next week!</p><p>Love, <br/>Annaelle</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <h1>Chapter Two</h1><p>
  <strong>
    <em>MUST-SEE: PEPPER POTTS SHARES ADORABLE AND HILARIOUS ULTRASOUND PICTURE OF HER BABY ON TWITTER!</em>
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <em>Pepper Potts revealed she was expecting her first child with partners James Rhodes and Tony Stark a few months ago. Yesterday, the C.E.O. of Stark Industries shared an ultrasound picture on Twitter, where we can clearly see the baby takes after one of its fathers! </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Potts, 43, announced her first pregnancy in December of last year through a truly adorable video starring her partners and Captain Steve Rogers, who is a close friend of Potts and her partners. Since the announcement, Potts has been sharing biweekly updates in the form of pictures, anecdotes and short videos featuring most of the Avengers. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>[…] Besides Potts herself, the most frequent guest on Potts’ Twitter page is Rebecca Barnes, who announced that she and Thor Odinson are expecting their first child only a few weeks after Potts’ announcement. […] Potts has shared quite a few ultrasound pictures of the baby already, but her last update promises to be the most popular so far. The post boasts another ultrasound picture, this one showing that the baby might take after daddy Tony Stark! “[…]baby swallowed amniotic fluid, and then they opened their little mouth SO wide and stuck their little tongue out so far the gynaecologist nearly fell of her stool laughing,” Potts wrote. “It was wonderful to see, because it looked like our baby had the biggest, cheekiest smile on their face—just like Tony.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Many of the other Avengers and various other celebrities saw the resemblance too. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Takes after Tony, that one,” Steve Rogers, Captain America and close personal friend of Stark, Rhodes, and Potts, replied. “We’re gonna have our hands full.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Lord have mercy,” James Rhodes, daddy number two, replied. “The world’s not ready for a second Tony Stark.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em>—Clarke Blake, Flair Magazine, “Pepper Potts Tweets Adorable Ultrasound Picture”, April 2016</em>
</p><p>——————</p><h3>6th avenue, Park Slope, Brooklyn, New York City, New York, United States of America<br/>23 April 2016</h3><h3>Peggy Carter</h3><p>Peggy Carter had lived through quite a few life-altering events during her ninety-five years, but she dared say that sitting through a—albeit lovely—dinner with her goddaughter and her <em>darling </em>boyfriend, her niece and her prickly fiancé, her wonderfully dumb Steven, and Becky was a trial unlike any other she had faced so far.</p><p>Conversation was perfectly civil, of course, because Rebecca Barnes—senior, that is—did not tolerate acrimony of any sort at her dinner table, but there was a certain… <em>tension</em> between them that had not abated throughout the entire meal.</p><p>She had an inkling as to its origin, of course.</p><p>Sharon and her Brock had been together for quite some time, and while Peggy certainly had her reservations about the man, none of her background checks or even the private investigators had raised any red flags beyond a mild propensity for running his mouth when he had had a few drinks.</p><p>She never quite warmed up to the man though, finding herself a little put off by his brash attitude and his overall personality.</p><p>Sharon, however, had been quite besotted with the man since the day they’d met, and Peggy was not in the habit of trying to dictate her children’s—for that was what Sharon and Becca were, to her—love life. She had discretely done said background check on him, of course, because one could never be too careful, but nothing had come out of it, and so she held her tongue.</p><p>Whatever her own reservations towards him, Sharon loved him and he made her happy.</p><p>That was, in the end, all that Peggy wanted for her.</p><p>Her distaste of Brock, though, had been more apparent this night than she had intended for it to be.</p><p>Honestly, she blamed Thor a little bit, because Becca’s young man was so absurdly charming and lovely that Peggy couldn’t be fully blamed for showing something that might, in the right circumstances, be construed as… <em>preference</em>.</p><p>And honestly, whoever decided she was not allowed such preference?</p><p>People didn’t work that way.</p><p>Sometimes, one clicked with people, and sometimes, one didn’t. </p><p>It was just that…</p><p>Well, she always strived to be fair to her family, even when her personality didn’t quite match with everyone, and Brock—as became increasingly clear as time passed and his relationship with her niece became more serious—was part of that family.</p><p>So was Thor, but the scales skewed much more in his favor because he reminded her so very much of her Daniel that sometimes it <em>ached</em> to look at him.</p><p>He was courteous and kind, and he revelled in her stories of her days as director of S.H.I.E.L.D. He referred to each little scuffle as a mighty battle, won by glorious victory, and had sworn to her that her days as a warrior for Earth had certainly earned her spot at his father’s table in Valhalla on the very first day they’d met.</p><p>She may—or may not—have shed a tear or two.</p><p>It should have occurred to her then, when Becca invited her over for dinner with Sharon, Brock, Thor, and Becky, that Brock would sense the difference in their interactions.</p><p>He was, after all, a fully trained S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, and a good one too.</p><p>He’d noticed.</p><p>And the atmosphere during dinner had suffered for it.</p><p>It seemed to have eased off some now, while Thor bustled about in the kitchen to do the dishes, chattering happily with Becca, who sat perched on the counter beside him, cradling her swollen belly. Sharon leaned on the doorpost beside Becca, dangling an empty glass of wine from her fingertips as she occasionally threw a comment into the conversation.</p><p>They’d been whispering and giggling to each other the entire evening, and Peggy had to admit she <em>was</em> curious what those two were up to.</p><p>Steve had taken Brock to the living room, distracting the man from glowering at Peggy and Thor.</p><p>Honestly, Peggy huffed to herself, the entire thing was a tad tedious.</p><p>So she had a bit of a preference when it came to Sharon and Becca’s partners—sue her.</p><p>There was no need to be so petty about it.</p><p>“Well,” Becky said, raising an eyebrow at her, leaning back in her chair. “That could’ve gone better.”</p><p>Peggy snorted lightly and shook her head, setting down the glass of red wine she’d been sipping from all night on the table. “I suppose I could’ve comported myself better towards Brock,” Peggy admitted, glancing towards the living room, where she assumed Steve was entertaining the man in question.</p><p>Becky bit her lip and nodded lightly. “I mean… You hardly said two words to him and spent the rest of the night talking to Thor. It was rather obvious, Peg.”</p><p>Peggy pouted. “I suppose I should make an effort then, shouldn’t I?”</p><p>Becky wrinkled her nose at her and nodded. “I think you should.”</p><p>Peggy heaved a very put-upon sigh and hoisted herself out of her chair, smiling when Becky followed her example. They made their way into the living room, supporting each other as they walked, and settled comfortably on the love seat directly across from the fireplace.</p><p>Steve was kneeling in front of said fireplace, stacking several more blocks of chopped wood onto the dwindling flames. Peggy sighed wistfully, trailing her eyes appreciatively over Steve’s impressive biceps and exquisite form. It really was such a shame he had always been so hung up on Barnes—Peggy had had a great appreciation for him before the serum too, but…</p><p>There was something to be said for the way he had stepped out of the machine too.</p><p>She was sure they’d have had a lot of fun together if he hadn’t been so arse over teakettle in love with Bucky Barnes. Of course, she supposed if she and Steve <em>had</em> given each other a chance, she would never have married Daniel, and she would never have eventually fallen in love with her Angie too…</p><p>She would not have given them up for the world.</p><p>“Steve, darling,” she called out when he got back to his feet. “Come sit with us. What were you two talking about?”</p><p>Steve sat down on the sofa beside her and Becky’s love seat and smiled tightly. “We were discussing work, actually.” He shot a quick grin towards Rumlow when the man dragged a chair over so he could sit across from them, leaving the rest of the sofa open for the others.</p><p>“We were talking about the time he botched my mission,” Brock said, just the hint of a sneer detectable in his tone but voice otherwise just friendly enough to not be called out. “Put two of my guys in the hospital and had the Widow tase the shit out of another one. Still jumps at shadows, that one. Can’t use him for ops anymore, so thanks.”</p><p>He shook his head and took a chug of his beer. “Scared away our target too.”</p><p>Peggy raised an eyebrow. “Is this true?” she asked, turning to Steve.</p><p>She was aware Steve ran mostly Avengers-related missions nowadays, and that those missions were usually meticulously planned by Becca, Maria Hill, and Pepper Potts. She couldn’t quite imagine such a large mistake escaping their notice.</p><p>Steve’s cheeks colored, and he shrugged. “Yeah. We got the same anonymous tip about a terrorist group we’d been monitoring, and we responded without a lot of delay—we informed Fury, and he gave us the go-ahead, but apparently Maria had also sent out a STRIKE team.” He sighed and hung his head. “We collided mid-mission.”</p><p>Rumlow snorted. “I gotta hand it to ya, you had us down quick. Team’s good.”</p><p>Steve smiled, and Peggy eyed him carefully. It wasn’t a real smile, because Steve’s real smiles still made her heart flutter a little, but there was enough sincerity in it to fool the people that didn’t quite know him as well as she did—or, she supposed, as well as Becca did.</p><p>Her goddaughter walked into the room and plopped down on the couch beside Steve, poking him in the arm immediately and drawing his attention away from the conversation.</p><p>Sharon and Thor filed into the room as well, and Peggy watched her niece as she sidled up beside her fiancé, leaning her hip against his shoulder until he slipped his arm around her waist and leaned in to press a light kiss to her cloth-covered hip.</p><p>Thor, on the other hand, fit himself into the narrow available space between Becca and Steve, jostling them both playfully as he settled, allowing Becca to lean up against him comfortably, slipping one hand to the curve of her stomach, gently rubbing his thumb back and forth.</p><p>Peggy smiled despite herself.</p><p>He did remind her so very much of Daniel, even in this.</p><p>Daniel had been sweet and nervous and in awe of her pregnancy too, and he had tried to wait on her hand and foot, even when it had made her want to shoot him more than it had helped.</p><p>She’d seen enough interaction between Thor and Becca to know their dynamic was similar, but also wildly different. Where Peggy had grated beneath Daniel’s care and constant attention, too independent and too unwilling to let loose her grasp on control, Becca seemed to find Thor’s constant gaze reassuring, and his touch calming.</p><p>“So,” Brock said, eyeing Sharon and Becca contemplatively. “You two gonna tell us what it is you’ve been whispering about all night?”</p><p>Peggy looked between the two as well. She had to admit she was rather curious too, because Becky had already informed her that it was actually Becca who had asked if she would host a dinner for all of them so she could give them some important news.</p><p>“Yes,” Becca said slowly, glancing towards Sharon and then Thor. “Yes, I think…” She exhaled shakily and set one hand on her stomach. “Well, I think you’ve all noticed I’m pregnant.”</p><p>Peggy snorted a laugh, and Steve rolled his eyes.</p><p>“Thor’s dad…” Becca continued slowly, “he… Well, he’s not been the most <em>supportive</em> about it.”</p><p>Thor leaned forward then, a determined, yet grave expression on his face. “My father is a most traditional man, when it suits him to be one. He has ratified laws that state that if I wish to be able to claim our child as mine—my heir—it must be born on Asgard.”</p><p>Peggy blinked.</p><p>“Oh,” she said.</p><p>Becca smiled tightly. “Because travel through the Bifrost is extremely taxing for humans as it is, I need to travel there before I hit twenty-eight weeks. Just to be safe. It’s like flying in the third trimester.”</p><p>A heavy silence followed her words, and Peggy tried to wrap her head around what that meant.</p><p>“You’re—you’re twenty-six weeks along, though,” Peggy asserted. “You would have to go within…”</p><p>“Within two weeks, yes,” Becca nodded, leaning back into Thor’s embrace. “And I would be gone for… for a while, probably. If Eir and Thor are right, I wouldn’t be up for any sort of Bifrost travel for quite some time after the baby’s born either. So I…” She looked at Sharon, who smiled encouragingly, and Peggy found she had an inkling of where this was going.</p><p>“I need a replacement for my position as official S.H.I.E.L.D. liaison to the Avengers,” Becca continued. “Someone the Avengers as a whole trust, so I…” She finally returned Sharon’s smile. “I thought of Sharon. I know you’ve… you’ve had a hard time at S.H.I.E.L.D. since… everything,” Becca’s voice lowered, and rage pulsed deep within Peggy’s veins at the mere mention of the <em>absurd </em>charges they’d tried to lay against her niece. “I hoped you might like a change of scenery,” Becca continued. “Some new colleagues.”</p><p>She chuckled and elbowed Steve in the side as she added, “Mind you, they’re a mad bunch, and you should <em>never</em> listen to Steve, even though he’s team leader, because he’s full of shit, but—”</p><p>“I am <em>not</em>,” Steve said, affronted.</p><p>“Oh darling,” Peggy sighed. “You always were a dramatic shit. It stands to reason that didn’t change.”</p><p>Brock guffawed and the others snickered at Steve’s expense, and Peggy smiled broadly at him.</p><p>“Yeah, yeah,” Steve huffed indignantly, crossing his arms over his chest. “Come on, Becs, you were telling us something big, remember?”</p><p>Becca smiled beatifically at him, and Peggy shook her head to clear it—it was difficult, in moments like these, to remember that she wasn’t back in the war, and that Becca wasn’t Bucky Barnes, ribbing Steve about something or the other while the rest of the Howlies laughed at them. </p><p>Becky, God bless her, noticed her slip in attention, and patted her hand lightly on top of Peggy’s.</p><p>Peggy shot her a grateful smile before she focused her attention back on Becca.</p><p>“That’s mostly it,” Becca shrugged. “If Sharon agrees—”</p><p>“Oh, Sharon agrees,” the woman in question piped up from where she had settled on a second dining chair next to Brock, reaching out to take her fiancé’s hand. “It’ll be good to get away from S.H.I.E.L.D. for a bit,” she added sadly, and Peggy frowned.</p><p>It hurt, to think that the organisation she had built from the ground up was such a stifling place for her own niece now. It was so upsetting, in fact, that she nearly missed the scowl that marred Brock’s face before he schooled his face into a pretty convincing smile.</p><p>Nearly.</p><p>She eyed him shrewdly.</p><p>Did his jealousy of their acceptance of Thor run so deep that anything connected to him was automatically met with anger and resentment?</p><p>“—well,” Becca continued, grinning at Sharon, “then all that’s really left is me teaching you the ropes, and us coordinating moving to Asgard for the foreseeable future.” She looked back at Thor, who smiled tenderly at her before he leaned in to press a kiss to her temple.</p><p>“I’ll miss you, sweetheart,” Becky said quietly, and Peggy’s heart broke a little for her friend. Becky had raised Becca, thought of her as her daughter more than she did her <em>actual</em> daughter. It wasn’t easy for Peggy to know she’d miss the birth of Becca’s first—of their first great-grandchild—so it had to be agonising for Becky.</p><p>“About that,” Thor began. “If I may… I want to suggest that perhaps, you could accompany us. I’m sure it would mean a great deal to Rebecca to have you there,” he continued, and Peggy surmised from the stunned expression on Becca’s face that Thor’s suggestions was news to her too.</p><p>Becky blinked.</p><p>“Wouldn’t I be imposing?” she asked in a small, soft voice. “Your father hasn’t exactly been accepting of Becca—would he accept another human on Asgard?”</p><p>Thor shrugged. “That is really no concern of mine. He has made too many demands that we have been forced to concede to already. I will not stand for him removing Becca from her family when she needs them most.” His eyes softened, and Peggy was harshly reminded of Daniel, of the way he’d looked at her when she was being unreasonable, of the way he’d gone to bat for her when no one would even give her the time of day.</p><p>“Steve’s coming too,” Becca said, although she didn’t take her eyes off Thor. “For a bit.”</p><p>Peggy’s gaze swivelled to Steve, who nodded. “I haven’t put down the shield in almost a decade,” he said, and Peggy was fairly certain she wasn’t imagining the way his voice wavered a little. “What better time to take a break than now?” He shrugged and said, “Well, in a few weeks. I’ll have a few things to take care of before I can go too.”</p><p>“Just let me know when,” Becky said, startling Peggy a little. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”</p><p>In a flash, Becca was up and flung her arms around her grandmother, and Peggy smiled lightly. She’d never gotten to have these kinds of moments with her own son—he’d passed away before he’d been able to marry, to have children, and Peggy had been left with no one until Tony was born, and then later Sharon and Becca.</p><p>She was glad that she would get to have these moments now, at least.</p><p>Becca’s children, Tony’s children, Sharon’s children—if she ever chose to have any—would be her great-grandchildren, and she would love them like they’d been Michael’s.</p><p>She leaned her shoulder into Steve’s when he sat beside her, taking her small, wrinkled hand in his.</p><p>“Almost feels perfect,” he said quietly, watching Becca and Becky with a very familiar gleam in his eye. “Doesn’t it?” He looked at her and squeezed her hand carefully—so very carefully.</p><p>Peggy knew everything he wasn’t saying.</p><p>They’d lost Timothy only a few months ago, and Gabe a year before that. Dernier, Morita, Falsworth and Barnes had been gone for so long they felt like distant memories to her, and the others were only a little fresher in her mind than that—although she supposed they were much fresher in Steve’s mind. They were the only ones left of their merry little band, and… she understood what he meant.</p><p>They still had family, and it felt <em>almost</em> like home—but nothing ever would without the others.</p><p>“Yes,” she agreed, leaning her cheek against his shoulder, taking comfort in his presence. “Almost.”</p><p>——————</p><p>
  <strong>THE EFFECT OF POPULAR CULTURE ON WARTIME PROPAGANDA: CAPTAIN AMERICA</strong>
</p><p>
  <em>The character of Captain America was created by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon at the instruction of Senator Brandt after Captain Steve Rogers—a soldier without a military rank at that time—received the super serum and successfully survived the procedure. The character that was based on Steve Rogers’ life and journey to become the first and only American super soldier first saw the light on March 10<sup>th</sup>, 1942 in what would become a monthly collection that ended in July 1949, for after the war people lost interest in these kinds of stories. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>[…] Thus we can see the importance that offers this comic as a primary source, as well as being interesting to study the covert propaganda mechanisms. It also shows how people reacted to the horrors of war, especially those who felt that it was something that could happen to themselves, like the creators of Captain America. […] All the same, the collection of Captain America is most suitable for this type of study because we do not just see an imaginary superhero fighting Nazis and preventing them from seizing global control, but we see an American soldier and patriot fighting for his rights and his ideals. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>This is something to keep in mind when analysing these comics because, after all, Steve Rogers is a soldier and a real man, rather than another superhero. There is no official report on how Captain Rogers felt about his life being used to create propaganda, although there are several interviews available with members of the Howling Commandos, who all imply with varying degrees of subtlety that the Captain was not a fan of being followed around by cameras during missions.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>[…] Captain America has become a classical icon in the American culture over time, paraded about in comic books and films to promote what one can generally classify as “traditional Christian values”. An interesting, if not important, question one must ask themselves here is whether Captain Rogers supported those values himself. What little sources remain documenting the Captain’s life before he received the serum paint a picture that does not always fit with the image propaganda painted. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Rogers was, for example, the only child of a widowed, Irish immigrant mother, sickly and small in stature, and a card-carrying socialist whose arrest record was more impressive than several of today’s most well-known activists’. The only thing from his propaganda Captain Rogers ever openly agreed with was that he valued his new powers because he hadn’t always been this healthy—he used them to fight adversaries, Nazis and villainous HYDRA, to defend his homeland and principles because it was the right thing to do, not because he sought to fight anyone. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>[…] also in one of the first issues of the Captain America comics after Captain Rogers’ rescue of the 107<sup>th</sup> Regiment from Azzano, we are introduced to his inseparable partner, Bucky, who is the mascot of the 107<sup>th</sup> regiment in the comic books. This character soon became almost as popular as Captain America, because children didn’t have to dream about superheroes anymore—they could be one even when they were as young as Bucky Barnes. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Of course, James Buchanan Barnes, the inspiration for the character, was no child, nor a simple mascot for the 107<sup>th</sup> Regiment. The decision to make a grown man, who was an accomplished soldier that made the rank of Sergeant before he finished boot camp and was handpicked for extended training as an expert marksman, was almost definitely a carefully considered one. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>He was Captain Rogers’ childhood best friend and rumoured to be the reason Captain Rogers’ decided to save the imprisoned soldiers at Azzano. His influence on Captain Rogers, both as a comic book character and as his real-life right-hand man, is undeniable and must be considered in the context of this study. […] little is known how Sergeant Barnes felt about his comic book character, although several of the surviving members of the Howling Commandos have implied that neither Barnes nor Rogers were particularly pleased with their fictive counterparts. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>[…] on the pages of this comic, the fears and concerns of the American society at the time, regarding their ideas about the war and the Germans, are reflected.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>[…] nevertheless, it should be noted that Captain America was meant to be a figure that brings hope to the society, to bring it together to overcome the crisis. Not only this, with his ideals based on the reform of the New Deal, they could recover it to set a perfect example to try to carry out a new economic change. […] even after Sergeant’s Barnes’ and Captain Rogers’ untimely and tragic demises, the figures of Captain America and Bucky Barnes continued growing, expanding and reaching mythical proportions. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>With Captain Rogers’ miraculous recovery and revival, and his subsequent breakdown of everything the public has been fed by propaganda during the last sixty years, the question has arisen of how much of written wartime history is correct, and how much of it is the result of propaganda made real by fictional characters. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>[…] perhaps we live in a historic moment in time in which we need to appeal to the fictional characters to find heroes and role models that everyone should and could follow. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>—Marina Chorro Giner, “Political Propaganda during WWII: Captain America”, unpublished article on academia.edu about the influence of popular culture as political propaganda during WWII, March 2013</em>
</p><p>———————</p><h3>Tony Stark’s Personal Lab, Avengers Tower, Manhattan, New York, United States of America<br/>12:23 A.M., 28 April 2016</h3><h3>Tony</h3><p>Tony was a few hours into his favorite, semi-hazy mindset, tinkering with one of his newer prototypes—a modified version of the Mark IV suit, possibly designed with specs of every individual Avenger in mind, <em>just in case</em>—grease smeared across his cheek and all over his shirt when the elevator dinged pleasantly, and a heavily pregnant Pepper waddled into his workshop, one hand supporting her belly and the other pressed to her lower back.</p><p>Tony dropped his screwdriver and shot to his feet, rushing towards his girlfriend. “Hey Pep,” he said gently, because last week he’d greeted her too loudly and she’d cried for an hour and then yelled at Rhodey for not getting her French fries.</p><p>Tony was a <em>genius</em>. He occasionally learned from his mistakes—and the first thing he’d learned during Pepper’s pregnancy was to not aggravate or question the expectant mommy.</p><p>“What’re you doing down here?” he added, subtly walking her to the ultra-comfortable couch he’d put in his lab <em>because</em> Pepper—and occasionally Becca, when she got bored and needed to rib someone other than Cap—wandered down here to find him regularly.</p><p>“It’s late,” she told him reproachfully. “Rhodey’s not here to cuddle me, so you have to.” She tugged on his hand and frowned at him. “Come to bed with me.”</p><p>Usually, Pepper telling him to come to bed did the trick fine—Tony really did have a hard time saying no to her in general, and it was twice as bad now that she was pregnant and he owed her because “she was letting his spawn dance on her bladder for nine months”, and really, he couldn’t argue with that.</p><p>Of course, Pepper used that argument on him and Rhodey for everything—ranging from letting her have the last slice of bacon to driving to the grocery store in the middle of the night to get her the good kind of chocolate, because it “just wasn’t the same” if they got it delivered—but that didn’t make it any less effective.</p><p>Tony looked longingly over his shoulder at the suit he’d been working on.</p><p>Pepper sighed. “Alright. Compromise. Show me what you’re working on first, then bed.”</p><p>Tony beamed and led her back to the workbench, plopping down on his seat and gesturing to the suit—that would fit Cap’s dorito-esque proportions perfectly once it was finished—excitedly while he explained the features he’d built into it. Pepper smiled indulgently at him, rubbing her fingers through his loose, curly hair—he hadn’t put any product in it today, and he knew she liked it best that way.</p><p>“Steve’ll definitely appreciate it,” she told him when he fell silent.</p><p>Tony sighed and leaned forward, resting his forehead against the swell of her stomach, letting his eyes drift shut for a moment. He hadn’t slept in a while, because… because he needed to be <em>sure</em> that everything was ready, was <em>safe</em> by the time the baby—babies—would arrive, and he didn’t have a lot of time left.</p><p>Pep was due in five weeks—Becca in thirteen.</p><p>Sure, Becca wouldn’t <em>be</em> in the Tower for a while after the baby was born, and she was probably going to be safer on Asgard than anywhere else, but… just in case.</p><p>Just in case any of his nightmares turned out to be true.</p><p>He was pulled from his thoughts by a dull <em>thump </em>against his forehead. He looked up and blinked at Pepper, who was clearly fighting a smile.</p><p>“Was that—” he said, <em>astonished</em>, “Did my own kid just <em>kick me in the head</em>?”</p><p>Pepper snorted a laugh and Tony gaped at her. “My kid <em>kicked me</em>,” he repeated, slightly hysterically.</p><p>“Kid’s got good sense already,” someone said from behind him, and Tony whirled around on his wheelie chair to find the fucking Widow and her younger, redder shadow crowded in his doorway.</p><p>“Well, fuck you too,” Tony blurted, although he winced as Pepper smacked the back of his head for cursing in front of the—unborn—baby.</p><p>“We have to talk to you,” Wanda said slowly, accent lightly coloring her words. “We have…” she frowned and looked to Nat with a light frown, “…discovered something. Possibly.”</p><p>Pepper huffed a sigh. “You can have him for thirty minutes. No longer,” she said sternly, wagging her finger at the two other women. “It’s late and I need sleep, and I need my favorite teddy bear in my bed—preferably after he’s showered the grease off.”</p><p>Widow smirked. “Yes, ma’am.”</p><p>With that, Pepper waddled out of the lab, leaving Tony alone with their resident lethally reds. “Okay,” he said. “Well. Whaddya got?”</p><p>----------------------------</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>Poetic Edda – Hovamol – stanza 81 to 89 </em>
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <em>“Give praise to the day at evening, to a woman on her pyre, to a weapon which is tried, to a maid at wedlock, to ice when it is crossed, to ale that is drunk. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>When the gale blows hew wood, in fair winds seek the water, sport with maidens at dusk, for day’s eyes are many; from the ship seek swiftness, from the shield protection, from the sword cuts and from the maiden kisses. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>By the fire drink ale, over ice go on skates; buy a steed that is lean and a sword when tarnished. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>A man shall trust not the oath of a maid, nor the word a woman speaks, for their hearts on a whirling wheel were fashioned, and fickle their breasts were formed. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>In a breaking bow or a burning flame, a ravening wold or a croaking raven, in a grunting boar, a tree with roots broken, in billowy seas or a bubbling kettle, in a flying arrow or falling waters. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>In ice new formed or the serpents folds, in a bride’s bed-speech or a broken sword; in the sport of bears or in sons of kings. In a calf that is sick, or a stubborn thrall, a flattering witch or a foe new slain. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>In a light, clear sky or a laughing throng, in the bowl of a dog or a harlot’s grief! </em>
</p><p>
  <em>In a brother’s slayer, if thou meet him abroad, in a half-burned house, in a horse full swift; one leg hurt and the horse is useless… None had ever such faith as to trust in them all.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em>—Predictions of Odin One-Eyed, King of Asgard and the Nine, as quoted by Snorri</em>
</p><p>--------------------------------</p><h3>Tony Stark’s Personal Lab, Avengers Tower, Manhattan, New York, United States of America<br/>2 A.M., 28 April 2016</h3><h3>Steve</h3><p>Steve yawned and rubbed his hand through his undoubtedly messy hair.</p><p>He had rolled straight out of bed when J.A.R.V.I.S. had called for him, and the only reason he hadn’t rolled right into the suit was because the A.I. had assured him it wasn’t an Assemble-call. He had, thus, not made a lot of effort, and wandered down to Tony’s lab in his pyjama’s.</p><p>His only concession to social convention had been to pull on an incredibly soft t-shirt, and thick, woollen socks that Thor had once gifted him.</p><p>“Tony,” he complained as soon as the elevator doors opened, “why am I here? I could be <em>sleeping</em>.”</p><p>He stopped short when he caught sight of Natasha and Wanda, both gaping at him with parted lips, Tony standing a little behind them, his hair wild and curly and his expression sheepish.</p><p>“You <em>woke </em>him up for this?” Natasha demanded, rounding on Tony with a mighty frown. “I thought we agreed to wait until tomorrow, at least—J.A.R.V.I.S. hasn’t even finished processing all the information!” She gestured towards the large holographic screen angrily, and Steve looked too, unsure of what he was looking at.</p><p>“I didn’t agree to anything,” Tony protested. “<em>You</em> said—”</p><p>“We don’t <em>know</em> anything!” Natasha bit out harshly, uncharacteristically emotional and expressive.</p><p>“He should know!” Tony argued.</p><p>Nat opened her mouth to argue back, but Steve had had <em>enough</em>. “Guys!” he yelled, startling them all. “What do I need to know?”</p><p>Tony blinked wide-eyed at him. “Uh,” he said. “See. The thing is…” He stopped and looked helplessly at Natasha, who had her arms crossed over her chest and was glaring at him.</p><p>“Steve,” Wanda said timidly from where she stood, slightly behind Natasha, her eyes wide and imploring. “I didn’t want to tell you unless I was sure.” She had pulled the sleeves of her long t-shirt down over her hands and was fiddling with the edges nervously. Steve hadn’t seen her look this withdrawn and nervous in… God, he didn’t even know how long, and he didn’t like it.</p><p>“Tell me what, kid?” he asked, careful to keep his tone calmer than before.</p><p>“We think Hydra might be back,” Tony blurted, before his eyes went wide again and he clapped his own hands over his mouth.</p><p>Steve stared at him.</p><p>“That’s not funny,” he croaked, his hands curling into fists at the mere <em>idea</em>. “That’s <em>not fucking funny.”</em></p><p> Natasha looked at him, for the first time since she’d turned from him to yell at Tony, and her eyes were so <em>sad</em>, so <em>horribly sad</em>, that it made his skin crawl. He stood stock still as she approached, didn’t move when she laid a hand on his arm, didn’t <em>breathe</em> as she said, softly, “No one’s laughing, Steve.”</p><p>“I destroyed them,” he said, a little desperate. “I burned them to the ground, and I salted the earth, I made sure <em>nothing</em> was left.” He didn’t realize how loud he was speaking until the ringing silence that followed the last, shouted word. “I died destroying them,” he whispered. “They’re <em>gone</em>. Tony, you’re—you’re wrong.”</p><p>“It wasn’t Tony,” Wanda said quietly, and Steve startled at the sound of her voice.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“It wasn’t Tony,” she repeated. “I found them. And we’re not sure, but… we’re as sure as we can be.”</p><p>Steve noted, right then, that his breathing was more unsteady than it had been since he’d received the serum. He felt like he was having an asthma attack for the first time in eighty years.</p><p>He couldn’t say he’d missed it.</p><p>He sat, heavily, in the nearest wheelie chair and stared at his hands—he’d killed, pretty indiscriminately, with these hands, had tried to raze everything even remotely related to Hydra to the ground with these hands—and wondered if everything he’d done, if everything he’d died for…</p><p>If it had all been for nothing.</p><p>“Tell me,” he finally whispered hoarsely, lifting his gaze from his hands to look at his teammates—his <em>friends</em>. “Tell me everything.”</p><p>—————————</p><h3>E 206<sup>th</sup> Street, The Bronx, New York City, New York, United States of America<br/>28 April 2016</h3><h3>Brock Rumlow</h3><p>“Look,” Brock said patiently, slowly, because he knew he was pushing the line here, and that this whole thing could backfire on him very easily. “I’m not saying that I don’t think it’s a good idea, or that I don’t think you could and should do it.” He pushed up from the bed he shared with Sharon and walked over to where she stood, arms crossed over her chest and frowning.</p><p>“Shar,” he cajoled, trailing his hands down her upper arms. “I’m <em>so</em> proud of you. And of course, you should <em>absolutely</em> take this <em>amazing</em>opportunity, I’m just…” he shrugged and schooled his face into something semi-hurt. “I just wish I’d been part of the conversation, you know? We’re… I mean,” he sighed. “We’re supposed to be doing all of this together, right? And making huge, career-defining decisions are a part of that, aren’t they?”</p><p>He could <em>see</em> Sharon’s anger melting away, replaced by something sheepish—something he had been <em>hoping</em> to incite in her. He was desperately trying to salvage whatever he could from the flaming wreckage that had been his plan to turn Sharon.</p><p>In his defence, it had been <em>working</em>—Sharon had been relying on him, mostly, had been talking much more warmly about his fellow S.T.R.I.K.E. agents, who had been vocal about their support of her, while still feeding into the rumours about her supposed misconduct, and Brock had been <em>so close</em> to gently suggesting that <em>maybe</em> they should spend more time with those kinds of people…</p><p>With the people that believed her, that didn’t perpetuate a false, twisted version of her, with people like her and Brock—</p><p>And then it all got <em>fucked up.</em></p><p>He’d been planning on how to turn Sharon for <em>years</em>, had set everything into motion <em>years</em> ago, had been working it—on her—for the longest time before <em>fucking Rebecca Barnes</em> and her meddlesome band of Avengers had <em>ruined</em> everything.</p><p>Fuck those fucking bastards.</p><p>And fuck fucking Rebecca Barnes for giving Sharon <em>options</em>.</p><p>For getting her away from S.H.I.E.L.D. and from Brock’s direct influence and <em>fuck</em> her for doing it so smoothly and sneakily and fucking <em>publicly </em>that he hadn’t been able to do anything but nod along.</p><p>All he could do now was try to pick up whatever pieces were left and try to formulate something new, something equally good or <em>better</em>, something that would get Pierce to <em>listen to him</em>, to acknowledge him and to recognise the work he did for the betterment of Hydra.</p><p>“You’re right,” Sharon sighed, arms falling to her side as she leaned back against their dresser. “You’re right, I’m sorry, I should’ve talked about it with you. I just…” she threw her hands up in exasperation and shook her head. “I was so <em>excited</em>, so <em>thrilled</em> by the idea of getting away from it all that I just…” she hesitated. “I just didn’t think about it and said yes.”</p><p>Brock lifted a hand to stroke his fingers through her thick, blonde hair as he must’ve done hundreds, if not thousands of times before in the past five years, and heaved a sigh.</p><p>Really, he might have grown to like Sharon more, over time, if she’d let him turn her.</p><p>She was fucking <em>smart</em>, and if he hadn’t been quite so good an actor, she’d have seen through him <em>years</em> ago, and it didn’t hurt that she was easy on the eyes either.</p><p>Not to mention that the sex was <em>fantastic</em>.</p><p>It really was too bad she was so independent and opinionated.</p><p>So mouthy.</p><p>He could’ve put up with her overbearing aunt and Rogers and Barnes if she’d just been a little more… a little more docile, a little more receptive to <em>his</em> needs.</p><p>If she would’ve let him turn her to Hydra, rather than take the first opportunity that led away from him with both hands, not even bothering to look back.</p><p>Some fiancée she was.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” she said softly, before she leaned in and kissed him.</p><p>He kissed back automatically, without thinking much about it—it’d become a reflex, after all this time—trying to consider what he was going to do now. What use did he have for Sharon now that it had become glaringly obvious that he was never going to be able to turn her unless he would entirely rewrite her memory, like they’d done to the Soldier.</p><p>Unlike the Soldier though, Sharon would likely not survive the procedure.</p><p>Barnes, however… much as she aggravated him just by existing, Barnes had the exact potential that Sharon now lacked.</p><p>He needed access to Barnes, to the Avengers and their plans—</p><p>Brock broke the kiss abruptly, leaning back far enough to see Sharon’s quizzical expression.</p><p>“What’s wrong?” she asked, forehead creasing into a frown.</p><p>“Nothing,” he shrugged, eyeing her carefully, fingers tightening in her hair. “Sorry babe. This ain’t personal.” He abruptly tightened his hand into a fist and <em>yanked</em>, smashing Sharon’s head against the dresser as hard as he could. She gave a yelp that abruptly cut off when she hit the hardwood surface, and dropped like a sack of bricks when he let go off her, falling to the floor of their bedroom in an inelegant heap.</p><p>Brock eyed her prone body.</p><p>Well. That was step one.</p><p>He pulled his phone from his pocket and shot a quick text to Jack Rollins.</p><p>Time to implement step two and work out the rest of the plan.</p><p>HYDRA had sat back and watched Barnes and the Avengers mess up their plans for too long. It was high time to remind Barnes of her place in the world—not a future princess of fucking Asgard, but a future Soldier of Hydra.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>SPOILER : Brock reveals that he's been trying to convert Sharon to being a Hydra sympathiser for years, that their relationship has been nothing more than an assignment for him, and has just realised that won't ever work. </p><p>He then knocks Sharon out and begins planning to take Becca Barnes instead.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. The One With the Gala</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Next Chapter, darlings. </p><p>Things are going to happen and happen faster from hereon out. <br/>Please keep checking the tags, and if you have any concerns, please shoot me a message (I'm @cuthian on Tumblr)! </p><p> </p><p>Eternal thanks to @juuls for putting up with me. </p><p> </p><p>Love, Annaelle</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <h1>Chapter Three</h1><p>
  <strong>
    <em>PROJECT PHOENIX PHASE 1 <br/>PROGRESS REPORT </em>
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <em>REPORT OF MEDICAL EXAMINATION OF TEST SUBJECT</em>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>NAME </em>
  </strong>
  <em>BARNES, REBECCA <br/><strong>AGE </strong>23            <strong>RACE</strong> CAUCASIAN                  <strong>SEX </strong>FEMALE</em>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>DATE OF FIRST INJECTION </em>
  </strong>
  <em>APRIL 20, 2008 </em>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>DATE OF EXAMINATION </em>
  </strong>
  <em>MAY 26, 2008                       <strong>EXAMINED BY </strong>ELISA SINCLAIR</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>CONDITION OF THE SUBJECT BEFORE FIRST INJECTION (DAY 0)</em>
  </strong>
  <em><br/><strong>EYES </strong>BLUE      <strong>HAIR</strong> BROWN <strong>WEIGHT </strong>67 KG            <strong>LENGTH</strong> 173 CM </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>CONDITION OF THE SUBJECT AFTER FIRST INJECTION (DAY 38)</em>
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>EYES </em>
  </strong>
  <em>BLUE      <strong>HAIR</strong> BROWN <strong>WEIGHT </strong>70 KG            <strong>LENGTH</strong> 176 CM </em>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>MARKS AND WOUNDS (HEALING FACTOR) </em>
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>—</em>
  </strong>
  <em>LAST INFLICTED INJURIES 48 HOURS AGO—</em>
</p><p>
  <em>THREE BROKEN RIBS IN REMODELING STAGE OF HEALING (HEALING STAGE WEEK 6) – INDICATION OF ACCELERATED HEALING IN MINOR FORM </em>
</p><p>
  <em>CLEAN BREAK IN FEMUR OF LEFT LEG (HEALING STAGE WEEK 3) – INDICATION OF ACCELERATED HEALING IN MINOR FORM</em>
</p><p>
  <em>ONE DEEP PENETRATIVE WOUND ON UPPER ARM IN PROLIFERATIVE STAGE OF HEALING – FURTHER INDICATOR OF ACCELERATED HEALING IN MINOR FORM </em>
</p><p>
  <em>SEVERAL MINOR PENETRATIVE WOUNDS ACROSS UPPER TORSO AND LEGS IN PROLIFERATIVE STAGE OF HEALING – FURTHER INDICATOR OF ACCELERATED HEALING IN MINOR FORM</em>
</p><p>
  <em>CHAFE WOUNDS ON ANKLES AND WRISTS IN VARIOUS STAGES OF HEALING – FURTHER INDICATOR OF ACCELERATED HEALING IN MINOR FORM </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER EXPERIMENTATION </em>
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <em>SUBJECT IS SUITABLE TO PROCEED TO PHASE TWO OF PROJECT PHOENIX </em>
</p><p>
  <em>MOVE SUBJECT TO SECONDARY BASE FOR INTERACTION WITH THE WINTER SOLDIER AND FURTHER CONDITIONING</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>DATE</em>
  </strong>
  <em> MAY 26, 2008                 <strong>SIGNATURE</strong>    ELISA SINCLAIR</em>
</p><p>----------------</p><h3>Tony Stark’s Personal Lab, Avengers Tower, Manhattan, New York, United States of America<br/>30 April 2016</h3><h3>Steve</h3><p>Steve sat on a chair in the far corner of Tony’s lab, arms wrapped around his torso as he watched the others file into the lab. They’d spent most of the night combing through the data J.A.R.V.I.S. had collected and had, together, decided that it was in everyone’s best interest to call in the rest of the team to share what they’d found.</p><p>What they’d <em>possibly</em> found.</p><p>Steve understood why Tony… why <em>Wanda </em>thought that the terrorist group they’d been chasing might be Hydra. He saw the same patterns they did, he saw the kind of brutal effectiveness and zealotry that he’d only seen during the war in Hydra, and he <em>saw</em>.</p><p>He <em>saw</em> what Wanda meant when she had described her and Pietro’s experience with them, when she had talked about how they’d been meant to become tools to shape the coming century, to sow chaos so humanity would see they needed a strong hand to guide them. It sounded like things Schmidt would have said, like justifications Zola would have spouted for his sick human experiments—</p><p>He understood.</p><p>That didn’t mean he agreed.</p><p>There was nearly no direct evidence, nothing that pointed towards Hydra directly—no double salutes, no glowing blue weapons or secret bases with scarily advanced technology—nothing but rumors of misconduct, suspicious disappearances and something that, he had to admit, didn’t really add up with anything else.</p><p>Still, it was hard to believe that Hydra could’ve survived all this time—</p><p>That all he’d done would’ve been in vain.</p><p>“Why’re we here, Tony?” Becca asked when she walked in, rubbing her hand lightly over her belly. Thor followed her closely, waiting until she had taken a seat to press in behind her, letting her lean back against him. Natasha and Wanda were still sitting on one of the lab tables, leaning against each other tiredly, and Pietro was bouncing on his toes beside them.</p><p>Bruce and Tony were both wandering around the lab, tinkering and chatting distractedly.</p><p>“We should wait for Sharon, shouldn’t we?” said Tony questioningly, dropping the wrench he had been waving around for the last thirty minutes. “I mean, we’ve agreed to start trusting her, right? She’s gonna be our Becca for at least six months, she should be brought into the loop, shouldn’t she?”</p><p>Becca shook her head. “Sharon’s pretty sick, she’s not gonna be in today. Sore throat, ugly coughing, stuff like that. Brock called this morning, said he’s gonna take her to a doctor and let us know.” She leaned back into Thor again and winced a little, rubbing her hand over the side of her stomach where, Steve assumed, the baby had delivered a particularly hard kick.</p><p>“Okay,” Tony said. Then, “I have doctors on retainer for my staff. She could come here.”</p><p>“I’ll be sure to pass it along,” Becca said dryly. “Now why are we here?”</p><p>Tony heaved a sigh and spun on his heel, gesturing wildly at Steve, and Steve couldn’t help but smile, despite the grave subject. He pushed up, off his chair, and leaned against the table Nat and Wanda were sitting on. “We found something,” he said. “Well… Wanda and Nat found something.”</p><p>“Full disclosure,” Natasha said slowly, “We’re not a hundred percent sure, but…”</p><p>“We think Hydra might not be as dead and gone as we thought after all,” Tony blurted—again, <em>Christ</em>, Tony—before wincing and clapping his hand over his mouth again, like he had the previous night when he’d told Steve.</p><p>He crossed his arms over his chest and looked away as a deafening silence rang in the lab.</p><p>“I—what?!” Becca sputtered, eyes wide.</p><p>Thor leaned forward. “This is a very serious claim,” he said calmly, although his forehead was creased with concern. “Steven has told me much about these foes. If they are truly undefeated…” He did not finish, but he didn’t need to—the implication of Hydra’s return hung heavy in the air.</p><p>“We never knew what they were called,” Pietro said, and Wanda shook her head. “All we knew was that they lied to us,” she said, rubbing her fingers over the scars Steve knew lay hidden beneath her long sleeves. “They took many like us; willing, young… foolish. Others…” She bit her lip and chanced a glance at Steve. “Perhaps not so willing.”</p><p>“Regardless,” Steve said, and he hated that his voice was hoarse and unsteady. “We’re not <em>sure</em> that it’s Hydra, but we’re sure it’s <em>something</em>. And it goes up <em>high</em>. What we’ve found indirectly implicates senators, actors, ambassadors… even the World Security Council. We already knew this was bigger than them trying to frame Sharon, but…”</p><p>He sighed.</p><p>“This is much bigger than we anticipated.”</p><p>J.A.R.V.I.S. helpfully projected digital copies of the files they’d managed to collect in front of the others, and Steve watched as everyone began to sift through the collected documents and articles in there, every single one of them paling significantly as they did.</p><p>Steve knew the feeling.</p><p>Bruce looked faintly green around the edges, and Steve would be more concerned about him potentially hulking out if he didn’t have more faith in Bruce’s self-control. “What are we going to do?” Bruce choked. “What <em>can</em> we do?”</p><p>“Steve,” Becca said slowly, trembling fingers hovering over the digital file, “Why is my—the—why am <em>I </em>in here?”</p><p>“There seems to have been more to the attack that took out your squad than we thought,” Tony answered for him, voice gentle as he approached his godsister. His voice and expression were haunted. “There’s been a lot of suspicious activity around there since then too, and it just keeps happening. And…” He hesitated, looking to Steve helplessly.</p><p>Steve sighed and moved towards Becca, settling on the seat beside her and taking one of her hands in his. “We found files, detailing… detailing torture and experimentation that sounds a lot like what was done to you while Al ’Qaeda had you.”</p><p>Becca looked downright nauseated. “So you think it was Hydra?” she choked. “That they experimented on me?”</p><p>“No,” Steve said, shaking his head. “No. I mean, I don’t know. I just know that there might’ve been more to it than we originally thought. Than you might’ve thought.”</p><p>Becca swallowed thickly.</p><p>Thor rested a hand on her shoulder, rubbing a thumb over the tense line of her shoulder soothingly. Becca didn’t relax, per se, but she did exhale roughly. “Okay,” she said quietly. “So what else do we have? What are we doing? What’s our next step?”</p><p>“We need more intel,” Natasha said simply. “Steve got an invitation to a gala in a few days where a lot of the potentially incriminated ambassadors will be. We’re especially looking to talk to Julien Beckers,” she pulled up a picture of a sandy-haired man in a suit and a tie and continued, “the Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs. He’s implicated in a lot of shady stuff, and apparently loose-lipped when plied with enough alcohol.”</p><p>Bruce frowned. “That seems like a pretty poor quality for someone involved with shady stuff.”</p><p>Tony nodded vigorously and pointed at Bruce. “And that’s why he doesn’t drink at public functions. The trick will be to get him drunk without him knowing, without arousing his suspicions.”</p><p>Bruce nodded. “That’s easy enough to arrange. All we need to do is sneak someone into the serving staff and make sure there’s some kind of undetectable drugging agent in his drink.” He frowned. “It’d probably help if someone was distracting him too.”</p><p>Natasha nodded. “Which is where Steve comes in,” she said. “<em>And</em>…” she looked towards Becca. “You, if you and Thor feel comfortable with it.”</p><p>Becca blinked. “Me?” she said, pointing at herself quizzically. “But I’m pregnant.”</p><p>“Yes,” Natasha nodded. “Which is why no one would suspect us of actually running an op if you’re there. No self-respecting first world country would put their visibly, famously pregnant agent on an active op in the field.”</p><p>“With good reason,” Thor said, frowning severely.</p><p>“She wouldn’t be in danger,” Steve put in immediately. “I’d be with her the entire time, and we’re just going to a party to talk to someone.” He looked at Thor seriously, imploringly. “I’d <em>never</em> put her in danger, Thor. <em>Either </em>of them.”</p><p>“<em>She</em> is right here,” Becca said impatiently. “And I <em>can </em>speak for myself.”</p><p>Steve abruptly looked at his best friend and winced. He had been out of sorts since Tony had told him about… about all of this, and so busy trying to figure this out that he’d just… <em>forgotten</em> Becca was sitting right in front of him and wasn’t going to let anyone—even Thor—tell her what to do.</p><p>“Sorry,” he said shortly. “I’m sorry. If you think you’re up for it, I could use your help.”</p><p>Becca looked at him intently, and he just barely managed not to squirm beneath her gaze before she asked, quietly, “And… you’re sure it’s safe? That nothing will happen?”</p><p>“As sure as we can be,” he nodded. “And Clint will be right with us, he can get to us faster than anyone should something go wrong.”</p><p>Natasha nodded intently, and Becca looked a little more reassured by that.</p><p>She looked up at Thor, questioning, and Steve looked away abruptly.</p><p>He’d… he’d been able to communicate with Bucky by just looking at him too, and he… while he was doing good, he still wasn’t great at <em>watching</em> someone else have what he’d lost.</p><p>“I’ll do it,” Becca said.</p><p>Steve swallowed thickly and nodded. “Okay.” He looked up at Tony. “Well. What’s next?”</p><p>Tony clapped his hands gleefully. “<em>Shopping!</em>”</p><p>------------</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>INTERNAL MEMO <br/>“The Thule Society Future Debates: <br/>Results and Actions” </em>
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>SESSION NOVEMBER 1991                                                                                         VOLUME 1 </em>
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>COUNCIL OF REPRESENTATIVES OF CONTINENTAL FACTIONS</em>
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <em>Monday, November 30, 1991 </em>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>ASIA</em>
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <em>The dissolution of the U.S.S.R. seems imminent. Local chapters of the Society have prepared for all eventualities and are imprinting new codes and failsafes into each of the Widows to ensure the continued longevity of the program. </em>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>EUROPE</em>
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <em>The Society has gained foothold in Belgium after the general elections – traditional Christian parties and Socialist parties have lost significant amounts of seats in the House of Representatives to Society sponsored party Vlaams Blok. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Society partners are now hopeful to continue to gain access to several international agencies through their now established foothold in Belgian parliament.</em>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>AFRICA</em>
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <em>Society groups have successfully destabilised government in Somalia and are currently feeding into the established chaos to continue spreading civil war into the surrounding nations.</em>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>NORTH AMERICA</em>
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <em>The North American Society has learned of a potential opportunity to obtain the serum needed to proceed with Project Phoenix, provided a suitable genetic match for the Soldier can be obtained. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Recalibration and conditioning of the Soldier has been successful thus far – the Soldier will be sent to eliminate all targets and retrieve the serum. The Soldier’s new handler has assured the North American Society the incident from ’79 will not be repeated. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>If proved successful, further responsibilities will be assigned. </em>
</p><h3>Common Floor of the Avengers Tower, Manhattan, New York City, U.S.A. <br/>3 p.m., 2 April 2016</h3><h3>Steve</h3><p>“I hate this,” Steve said glumly, staring down at himself with all the air of a defeated man.</p><p>Becca snorted a laugh from her seat at the vanity, where Natasha was doing something complicated to her hair. She was already fully dressed, the one-shoulder dark blue gown she’d picked achieving the exact effect they were hoping for—she looked soft and unthreatening, but had a gun strapped to her thigh and a knife to her ankle, and Steve was pretty sure he’d heard Natasha mention something about narcotics hidden in the pearls in her necklace. “Don’t be dramatic,” she said, rolling her eyes at him in the mirror. “I’ve seen you wear <em>much </em>worse than a bespoke suit, Rogers.”</p><p>Steve pouted. “It’s just so…” He ran his hands down the soft fabric of the waistcoat. “<em>Fancy</em>. Expensive. I think this suit cost enough to have fed Bucky’s entire family for a month when we were kids.”</p><p>Becca shook her head at him and Tony, who had just entered the room, barked a laugh. “Far be it for me to break your socialist little heart, Cap,” he joked, “but you’ll stand out more if you’re <em>less </em>fancy.”</p><p>Steve glowered at him but accepted his fate and sat on the large pouf to tie his ridiculously shiny, dark leather shoes. Thor, who had been mostly silent through the entire process, chuckled at Steve’s reticence and pronounced, “I think you look rather dashing, my friend. Shame you could not be adorned in the Aesir formal wear I had fashioned for you, but… This will do.” Steve wrinkled his nose and Thor laughed, clapping a hand on Steve’s shoulder companionably. “You cut an impressive figure, and you will do very well to escort my Rebecca to the gala tonight.”</p><p>Becca beamed at him from where she sat on her stool, Natasha’s hands still buried in her hair, twisting it onto the top of her head in a complicated mess of intricate braids and loose curls.</p><p>Steve grinned lightly and shook his head. He thought he may actually have felt more comfortable in the formal wear Thor had fashioned for each of the Avengers—he was far more used to standing out due to ostentatious and unconventional clothing than due to well-tailored and hideously expensive clothing—but he’d been outvoted.</p><p>“Plus, it’ll be a great opportunity to listen in on what Julien Beckers has to say,” Tony pointed out. “If he really is in with Hydra—or whatever it is,” he conceded when Steve made a protesting noise, “he might slip up if we get him drunk enough.”</p><p>“What if he switches to Dutch when he’s drunk though?” Steve pointed out reasonably. “I know a little, but mostly curse words and directions.”</p><p>Tony snorted derisively and waved his hand lightly. “J.A.R.V.I.S. is programmed into the comms units, so he’ll provide translations if you need any.” He frowned at Steve and added, “I can’t believe you thought I didn’t think of that. I’m <em>hurt</em>, Steven, <em>hurt</em>.”</p><p>“Yeah, yeah,” Steve waved his hand dismissively and slipped into his suit jacket. He moved to stand in front of the full-length mirror and looked at himself, rubbing his fingers over the light stubble that he’d uncertainly not shaved today. Natasha had insisted, said it made him look less threatening, less All-American goody-two-shoes, and Steve had long since learned not to question her.</p><p>He looked… <em>polished</em>. Older.</p><p>Not like himself <em>at all</em>.</p><p>Becca sidled up next to him, her dress falling over the swell of her belly in smooth, soft folds of dark blue fabric, hair piled on her head in a mess of braids and curls, and she leaned against him playfully, linking their arms together and grinning at him in the mirror.</p><p>“We look good, Rogers,” she grinned. “We’re gonna nail this bastard.”</p><p>Steve smiled tightly. “Absolutely,” he agreed.</p><p>She was right. All they had to do was get in, get some guy drunk, and get back out.</p><p>Easy peasy.</p><p>They had this.</p><p>------------</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>CBS News (@CBSNews) 2 min.</em>
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <em>BREAKING: Fire Breaks Out at The Liberty Warehouse in Brooklyn, leaving dozens of guests of the Schliemann Fundraiser Gala outside in the cold! Follow developments here: cbsn.ws/5Ght67 </em>
</p><p>------------</p><h3>The Liberty Warehouse, Red Hook, Brooklyn, New York City, U.S.A. <br/>9:47p.m., 2 April 2016</h3><h3>Steve</h3><p>The fire alarm was still blaring by the time first responders arrived and began ushering frightened, drenched guests dressed in expensive—and now ruined—silks and satins away from the terrace, out into the street and towards the awaiting ambulances. Most were clustered together in little groups, whispering frantically, pointing their phones at the broken glass on the sidewalk and the smoke billowing out from the windows nearest to the second-floor balcony.   </p><p>Steve stood amidst the chaos and blinked, confused—unsure about what had happened. </p><p>Everything—everything had gone so fast.  </p><p>One minute, he had been dancing with Beckers’ date, trying very hard not to tread on her toes, while Becca chatted happily with the man and plied him with specially developed alcohol provided by Clint, and the and the next, the fire alarm had been pulled, water was spritzing everywhere and he had lost Becca in the urgent throng of people.  </p><p>He couldn’t see Clint either, but he knew the archer could take care of himself, even though he was somewhat of a human dumpster fire most of the time.   </p><p>He frowned a little as he moved through the crowd of gossiping partygoers, glancing left and right to try to find Becca. His suit was uncomfortably wet, chafing against his skin as he walked—even his socks were wet—and he really just wanted to find Becca so he could call Happy to take them back to the Tower. </p><p>He wasn’t worried about her or about them getting separated—it made some sense. </p><p>When the alarm went off, he’d been on the dance floor and had gotten swept out the west fire exit with a group of others who’d been on the dance floor, while he presumed the people at the bar had been led out of the north exit. </p><p>He just needed to find someone who knew where the groups of evacuees that had been at the bar had been sent, so that he could find Becca. </p><p>The loud blaring of the fire alarm, coupled with the ringing sirens of emergency services, were loud enough to drown out anything Clint or Becca might’ve tried to say to him over the comms, and there’d been something about the building that interfered with their connection in the first place, so he couldn’t even call her, anyway. </p><p>A little annoyed, he pulled his phone from his pocket. He exhaled in relief when he noticed he had full bars, and he could text her despite whatever was blocking their comms; although he didn’t expect a response immediately—her phone was in her purse, and Steve wasn’t sure if she’d have thought to grab it off the bar when they were being ushered outside. </p><p>‘<em>Nothing’s wrong</em>,’ he told himself sternly as he walked around the building slowly, coming across several more groups of guests, none of which contained Becca. ‘<em>She’ll be somewhere around the corner, chatting up Beckers like nothing’s wrong</em>.’ </p><p>Besides, he reasoned, it wasn’t like she’d activated any of the distress signals Tony had built into her bracelet, earrings, or shoes. </p><p>There was probably a really good reason he hadn’t found her yet. </p><p>Maybe she was running around the building trying to find <em>him</em>. </p><p>Maybe she’d been taken into an ambulance because she was pregnant, to be checked for smoke inhalation, to make sure everything was okay. </p><p>He’d find her. </p><p>He rounded another corner and breathed a sigh of relief when he spotted Beckers, facing Steve and talking to a woman with messy dark hair and a long, one-shoulder dress, who stood with her back to Steve. </p><p>Becca. </p><p>He exhaled sharply in relief and rushed forward, grasping at the woman’s shoulder and turning her around. “Becca,” he said in a rush, “I’ve been looking everywhere—”</p><p>He stopped short as the woman, who was taller than Becca, now that he looked closer, and very much <em>not</em> pregnant, blinked at him in surprise. “Sorry,” he said in an exhale, letting go of her immediately. “I thought you were…” He turned to Beckers, who was also regarding him with wide eyes, and demanded, “You were talking to my friend, earlier, before the alarm. Have you seen her? Did she come outside with you?” </p><p>“I can’t say that I have,” Beckers replied, looking convincingly puzzled. “She went to the bathroom shortly before the alarm went off, said something about the baby standing on her bladder. I didn’t see her again. Perhaps she is with another group?” </p><p>“Yeah,” Steve said, breathless, dread coiling in the pit of his stomach. “Yeah, probably.” </p><p>He turned away and looked around, feeling a little helpless when he <em>still</em> didn’t see her. His hands were trembling a little as he pulled out his phone again. </p><p>The message he’d sent to Becca was still unread. </p><p>“Fuck,” he said softly, before thumbing through his contacts until he found the one labelled ‘Sugar Daddy’—Tony thought he was funny—and pressed call. </p><p>“Spangles,” Tony crowed when he picked up. “What’s going on? Leave it up to you to ruin a perfectly good party by setting the building on fire, <em>honestl—</em>” </p><p>“Tony,” Steve interrupted impatiently. “Look, I’m—I’m probably overreacting. It’s pretty chaotic out here, but can you… Can you just have J.A.R.V.I.S. ping Becca’s tracker? I can’t find her, and… God, maybe we’re both trying to find each other and keep missing each other, but—for my peace of mind, can you just—” </p><p>“Yeah,” Tony said, and Steve could tell he was trying to sound calm. “Yeah, I got this.”</p><p>It only took a few seconds, but in those few seconds, the blaring fire alarm finally cut out, and Steve’s ears were ringing in the silence, his own breath absurdly loud in his ears, before Tony said, “Cap… Steve. Her trackers are all offline.” </p><p>The bottom of his stomach fell away.</p><p>There wasn’t a way to <em>accidentally</em> disable the subdermal trackers—they had to be cut out and smashed. </p><p>“Call in everyone,” he told Tony automatically, unthinkingly, swerving around to survey the crowd again, trying to see if Clint—probably still in disguise—was among them. “I’ll get Clint, we'll canvas the building and the streets, then get back to the Tower ASAP. Maybe she’s just… just around somewhere, or in the building still.” </p><p>“Steve,” Tony said, voice low and distressed, and Steve’s stomach twisted. </p><p>“I know,” he said shortly. “I know. Get the others.” </p><p>“Yeah,” Tony said shakily. “Yeah.” </p><p>He hung up and Steve looked around again. How the hell had this night gone so wrong so fast? And who the hell would want to kidnap <em>Becca</em>, of all people, at a gala with a guest list filled with foreign dignitaries and New York’s rich and famous? </p><p>And, Steve swallowed thickly, what would they do to her?</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. The One Where Thor Loses his Shit</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hi everyone! </p><p>Hope you're all still safe and healthy :) </p><p>Longer chapter this week, since it'll have to last you two weeks. I won't be able to post again next week due to my busy and hectic exam and work schedule now that everything is opening again here in Belgium. <br/>As always, but especially from hereon out, PLEASE mind the tags (canon-typical violence, kidnapping, angst) and if you have any concerns, please feel free to contact me (@cuthian on Tumblr). </p><p>Or yell at me in the comments. </p><p>As always, much thanks to @juulna for putting up with me and helping me whip this thing into shape. </p><p> </p><p>Lots of love, <br/>Annaelle</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <h1>Chapter Four</h1><p>
  <strong>
    <em>28 CELEBRITIES WHO HAVE OPENED UP ABOUT THEIR STRUGGLES WITH MENTAL ILLNESS </em>
  </strong>
</p><ul>
<li><strong><em>Research shows that stereotypes about mental illness often prevent people from seeking treatment or speaking out about their struggles.</em></strong></li>
<li><strong><em>In recent years, stars like Sophie Turner, Chrissy Teigen, Demi Lovato and Prince Harry have spoken candidly about their struggles with mental illness. </em></strong></li>
</ul><p>
  <em>Despite the prevalence and global impact of mental health conditions, it’s still hard to open up and ask for help when you most need it. Research shows that harmful stereotypes about mental illness often prevent people from seeking treatment or speaking out at all. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Luckily, in recent years, we’ve seen a shift in the way people view and talk about mental health conversations about depression, anxiety, addiction and more have moved from the private to the public sphere. That’s not only important, but effective, according to mental health experts. In fact, when public figures open up about their own mental health struggles, it can help break down stigma, spark important discussions and even inspire people to seek out treatment. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Below, we’ve rounded up 28 celebrities who’ve spoken candidly about their own battles with everything from postpartum depression to anorexia and PTSD. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>[…]</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Prince Harry spoke to a therapist about his mental health after two years of "total chaos" in his late twenties.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>[…] recently revealed he felt very close to a complete breakdown all the time, and faced anxiety during royal engagements before he finally began to see a professional to address his grief. Now “in a good place”, Harry has encouraged others to open up about their own struggles. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>[…] started the Heads Together campaign with Prince William and Kate Middleton to help “end the stigma around mental health issues.” […] "The experience that I have is that once you start talking about it, you suddenly realize that actually, you're part of quite a big club," he told The Telegraph.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>[…]</em>
</p><p>
  <em>An outspoken advocate for mental health awareness, Demi Lovato is open about her battles with bipolar disorder, bulimia, and addiction.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>[…] recently released a documentary about her own struggles, shared powerful side-by-side photos of her recovery from bulimia and entered rehab to address her substance abuse issues. "It's very important we create conversations, we take away the stigma, and that we stand up for ourselves if we're dealing with the symptoms of a mental illness," Lovato</em>
  <em> told Variety</em>
  <em> in February. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>The singer continued: "It is possible to live well and thrive with a mental illness."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Steve Rogers, or Captain America, who struggles with social anxiety, depression and PTSD, once said he suffers from "a noisy brain."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>[…] interview with Ellen earlier this year, the former Army Captain and Avenger revealed how his anxiety often kicks in when he is asked to speak for causes he cares about, or during press conferences. […] Rogers, who has tried everything from meditation with fellow-Avenger Bruce Banner to learning several new fighting styles with close friend Natasha Romanoff, said he’s “getting better”, but still has moments of self-doubt. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>[…] Avenger also opened up about his struggles with depression shortly after he was woken from the ice. “The kindness that was shown to me by my friends—my team—as well as my family and my therapists saved my life,” he told Ellen. […] also shared an emotional letter about his PTSD following his experiences during World War II and during the several battles he has fought in the 21<sup>st</sup> century. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>"There is a lot of shame attached to mental illness, but it's important that you know that there is hope and a chance for recovery," he wrote.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>—Evan Agostini, Axelle Bauer-Griffin, “28 Celebrities Who Opened Up About Their Struggles with Mental Illness”, Insider.com, March 2016</em>
</p><p>-----------------</p><h3>Avengers Tower, New York, Manhattan, New York State, United States of America<br/>10:36 p.m., 2 April 2016</h3><h3>Tony</h3><p>Tony was shaking a little, fidgeting, his heart beating unsteadily in his chest as he paced the floor again. He’d been hiding in his lab since this morning, because while he loved Pepper to pieces, and he was elated—re: <em>terrified</em>—that she was pregnant and that they were going to be parents, she was driving him fucking <em>nuts</em>.</p><p>At least while he was in his lab, he wouldn’t be shouted at for eating the last Oreo’s.</p><p>Pepper didn’t even like Oreos.</p><p>She didn’t even want to eat them.</p><p>Tony didn’t understand pregnancy brain, but he’d been informed by Google, J.A.R.V.I.S., Rhodey, <em>and</em> Cap that it was best to just not question it.</p><p>He also wasn’t sure why he was thinking about Oreos when Becca was potentially in very big trouble, and Steve had left the dubious honour of telling Thor to him. “J.A.R.V.I.S.,” he said, a little desperately, voice shaking. “You heard the man. Call everyone in.”</p><p>“I have sent an Alert to all of the Avengers’ personal phones,” J.A.R.V.I.S. replied readily, and Tony exhaled a little in relief. <em>Someone </em>had clearly planned this, had gone through the effort of setting half a building on fire to keep Steve distracted and get to Becca without drawing attention to what they were doing, and Tony was a little afraid to think of who they might be—of what they wanted with Becca.</p><p>He was going to do as Steve asked, though, because he would <em>never</em> forgive himself if something happened to Becca and he could have done something to <em>help</em>, to <em>stop</em> whatever it was.</p><p>The way Steve had sounded on the phone had kind of… <em>scared</em> Tony too.</p><p>He’d not heard Steve fall back to that dull, lifeless, monotone tone of voice very often, and when he <em>had</em>… well… it had never meant very good things for any of them.</p><p>The last time he’d heard Steve sound like that… the last time Steve had called Tony sounding like that, Tony had had to rush Natasha to Steve and Becca’s tiny Brooklyn apartment to keep Steve from doing something drastically stupid—she’d found the war hero crumpled in a heap on the floor with tears running down his cheeks and a gun to his head, begging her to just let him pull the trigger…</p><p>To let Steve stop the nightmares permanently.</p><p>He shuddered.</p><p>Yeah… Hearing that tone coming from Steve <em>meant</em> something.</p><p>Tony was <em>barely</em> holding himself back from rushing down to the lab and throwing himself into a suit, hurtling off to… to <em>nothing</em>. <em>Nowhere</em>.</p><p>He didn’t know anything yet.</p><p><em>Steve </em>didn’t know anything yet.</p><p>He’d asked Tony to assemble but had left him with no other instructions and Tony <em>knew</em>, okay, he <em>knew</em> there was nothing he could do until he had more information.</p><p>And <em>fuck</em> if that didn’t frustrate him <em>more</em>.</p><p>He was <em>stuck</em>, wandering his Tower while his stomach twisted at the <em>many</em> implications his mind was set on conjuring up, each more gruesome than the other.</p><p>The elevator let out a bright <em>ping</em> and Tony jumped, eyeing the sliding door nervously until it slid open to reveal Natasha, dressed in a tight tank top and leotard, her hair coiled up into a tight bun and ballet slippers dangling from her left hand.</p><p>“What was so urgent, Stark?” She demanded, crossing her arms over her chest with a frown.</p><p>He waved his hands dramatically, because he was <em>Tony Stark</em> and if ever there were a time he were  allowed to be fucking dramatic, it would be when Captain <em>goddamn </em>America called him in a panic because he’d lost Tony’s little Baby-Becs, and then giving Tony a heart attack when her tracker wouldn’t work.</p><p>“Gotta get to the others first,” he said impatiently, snatching her wrist and pulling her along when he started walking again.</p><p>He led the Spider through the silent, unlit hallway, but didn’t bother asking J.A.R.V.I.S. to turn on the lights; he’d <em>designed</em> these hallways, he’d walked them so many times he could probably do it in his sleep—which he <em>had</em> a few times, when Pepper had dragged him to board meetings before he’d had coffee. The twins would likely already be waiting for them in the boardroom anyway, and after all of Thor’s dramatic appearances in the past few years—all of which had cost Tony more than a few light bulbs—he didn’t want to <em>bother </em>anymore.</p><p>He ignored the Widow’s cool, silent surprise and dragged her through the door, entirely unsurprised to find Wanda seated at the table in her pyjamas, spinning a thread of red light between her fingertips as she sat cross-legged in her seat, her brother next to her, lounged back in his own seat, boots propped up on <em>his</em> table.</p><p>“You know,” he drawled impatiently, glaring—okay <em>maybe</em> mock-glaring—at the silver-haired boy impatiently. “You live here <em>for free</em>. You could at least <em>pretend</em> to take care of my furniture.”</p><p>Natasha snorted a laugh and pushed past him, settling in the seat to Little Red’s left. Before the Red fucking Menace could do anything but smirk at him though, the door swung open again to reveal Bruce, dressed in an old band shirt and threadbare sweatpants, his lab coat halfway up his shoulders and his glasses crooked, almost as though he’d just rolled out of bed.</p><p>There was a single clock on the wall—for Pepper’s decorative purposes, Tony presumed—and he couldn’t quite stop himself from frowning as he eyed the clock’s hands.</p><p>10:45 P.M.</p><p>Bruce probably <em>had</em> just rolled out of bed then. </p><p>The other scientist had a <em>disgustingly </em>strict sleeping schedule.</p><p>“Why are we assembling?” Bruce groaned, rubbing his hand through his—surprisingly curly—hair, and Tony unexpectedly found his thoughts derailed from Becca and Steve to Bruce in <em>much </em>more pleasurable territory, fingers itching to tug on those curls and to press into Bruce’s arms, because the other scientist gave <em>really good hugs, </em>okay?</p><p>He’d always been a little sweet on Bruce, even if nothing was ever going to come of it.</p><p>He had chosen Rhodey and Pepper years ago, and he was pretty sure Bruce had been dating that astrophysicist girl that Thor had introduced them to a while ago anyway, but… There was a part of him that’d always be kind of weak for the way Bruce looked all adorably sleep-rumbled and soft, and the way he was one of the only people in the world that could <em>keep up with him</em>, one of the only intellectual equals Tony had ever met in his life.</p><p>He wasn’t going to do anything about it though.</p><p>It was a harmless crush—he was even pretty sure Bruce knew about it. Bruce was, objectively, handsome, and <em>really</em> fucking smart.</p><p>He hit all buttons for Tony—except that, you know, he wasn’t Rhodey or Pepper.</p><p>He shook himself, chancing one more furtive glance towards Bruce’s sleep-rumpled form before he sighed and shook his head. “Something happened at the gala,” he said. “Steve’s gonna tell us more when they get here.”</p><p>He pushed his hands into the pouch on his hoodie and contemplated waking up Pepper, but he knew well enough not to disturb her once she’d managed to get comfortable and fall sleep unless it was <em>super</em> urgent, and he didn’t <em>know</em> what this was.</p><p>What if Becca had just wandered away?</p><p>He ignored, for the moment, that her subdermal tracker—the tracker <em>he</em> had designed for her, for all of them, that he made sure <em>couldn’t</em>be taken out unless completely smashed to bits—wasn’t working. The comms hadn’t worked in the building either; some of those older buildings were practically Faraday cages, even his tech wasn’t always good enough to get through that—for all they knew, Becca’s tracker had <em>also</em> been jammed.</p><p>It wasn’t worth risking Pepper’s wrath for, he thought. Not yet.</p><p>He couldn’t even call Rhodey, because he was off in Europe for the week, doing… <em>military </em>stuff.</p><p>Which was fine.</p><p>Tony didn’t <em>need</em> both of them around all the time.</p><p>He wasn’t pouting.</p><p>He wasn’t.</p><p>Romanoff snorted at him and eyed him carefully. She raised a perfectly arched eyebrow at him, but he didn’t budge—Romanoff always liked to pretend she knew <em>everything</em>—she probably <em>hated</em> that she knew no more than the others did, right now.</p><p>“You know more,” she stated simply after a few seconds. “Is everyone alright?”</p><p>Tony opened his mouth to say “yes”, to nod reassuringly, but the word wouldn’t fall from his lips. “I don’t know,” he admitted. The atmosphere in the room abruptly went from sleepy yawns to rapt attention, and Tony fidgeted a little. “The building caught fire during the gala,” he explained. “Everyone was evacuated, but Steve lost Becca in the chaos, and now… we kind of can’t… find her…”</p><p>“What do you mean, you can’t find her?” Natasha demanded hotly, sitting up straight and glaring at him. “Activate her tracker. She can’t be far.”</p><p>Tony winced and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Her tracker… isn’t working,” he admitted, looking up at the Widow defiantly. “Steve and Clint are canvassing the building and then getting back here. For all we know, she got taken onto one of the ambulances, or the building interfered with the signal. The comms were spotty too; it’s why Clint went inside with them.”</p><p>Natasha hissed, almost like an angry cat, and stood, stalking up to the large holographic screen present in almost every room in the Tower and began pulling up… documents? Tony wasn’t sure <em>what</em> she was doing, but she seemed intent on doing it, and far be it from him to discourage the Black fucking Widow from doing what she thought needed doing.</p><p>“Have you told Thor yet?” Pietro said, glancing between Tony and Natasha nervously.</p><p>Almost like the man was summoned by the mere mention of his name, a loud clap of thunder shook them all and the giant blond god bounded inside, his smile wide and infectious.</p><p>“Greetings, friends!” The tall god beamed, and <em>Jesus</em>, Tony was <em>not</em> in the mood to deal with Thor’s sunny personality. Christ. “I apologize for the delay in my arrival,” the god boomed excitedly, thumping down his hammer on the conference table. “Heimdall did not inform me of your request until I had finished the duties the All-Father assigned to me.”</p><p>Tony half-watched as Bruce stood to shake Thor’s hand, only to be brought into a tight bear hug, a startled <em>squeak</em> falling from his lips before he patted Thor’s shoulder awkwardly until the taller man set him down again and repeated the hug with Wanda and Pietro, who basically threw himself in Thor’s arms—Tony <em>didn’t</em> miss the pointed look Wanda shot Pietro at that.</p><p>He almost jumped right out of his seat when Bruce’s knee bumped against his, his eyes drawn to the other scientist’s immediately, because <em>obviously</em> Tony was a glutton for punishment and he <em>really</em> needed to get a fucking hold of himself.</p><p>Bruce looked a little tired, but not nearly as anxious and unsteady as Tony felt, and <em>of course</em> he didn’t, he didn’t know what was going on, none of them did, really—</p><p>“Thor,” he exclaimed suddenly, yanking himself away from Bruce abruptly. “We gotta… Steve called, about the gala—something’s happened.”  He ignored the way the rest of the team eyed him nervously and settled back in his seat with minimal fidgeting.</p><p>Thor’s smile abruptly disappeared and he sat, heavily, on the nearest chair. “Rebecca,” he said hoarsely. “The baby, are they—are they alright? Is Steven?”</p><p>“I don’t know,” Tony admitted, his leg bouncing erratically underneath the table. This was… he was doing <em>something</em>, even if it was just telling Thor, even if it wasn’t much, and that was better than nothing. Doing nothing drove him absolutely and entirely <em>mad</em>—and that wasn’t good for <em>anyone</em>.</p><p>“I don’t know a lot yet,” he continued. “The building… there was a fire, and everyone was evacuated, but…” He stalled Thor’s words before he’d even said them, holding up a hand as though to ward off the questions that were sure to come. “…Steve said they got separated during the evacuation. He can’t find her. Her tracker’s offline. She… She might still be in the building or somewhere around there, but…” He swallowed. “Well, it’s not like our trackers can be disabled accidentally.” </p><p>Thor looked gutted, but the expression was swiftly replaced by one of utter <em>rage</em>.</p><p>“Who?” he demanded. “Who would <em>dare</em> take her from me? From us?”</p><p>Tony’s eyes widened when lightning sparked between Thor’s fingers and thunder rumbled loudly above them. “I don’t know, big guy,” he said in his calmest voice, although it didn’t seem to be doing much to assuage Thor. The crackle of electricity hung heavy in the air and made Tony’s skin prickle and thrum—the raw <em>power</em> rolling off Thor was… fucking <em>intimidating</em>, a reminder that the man <em>wasn’t</em> human, and that he could likely squash them all like bugs if given proper motivation—</p><p>The door swung open again and Steve and Clint walked in, and Tony nearly choked on his own tongue, because he’d seen Steve look pretty terrible over the years—in the throes of depression, bruised and beaten after battle, but…</p><p>He’d never seen Steve look like this.</p><p>There were dark circles beneath Steve’s eyes and several cuts and bruises were in various stages of healing, but Steve’s dark bespoke suit was riddled with bullet holes and splashed with so much ash and blood and Tony <em>really</em> hoped it wasn’t all his.</p><p>“Steven!” Thor bellowed, leaping from his seat and crossing the space between him and Steve in a few short strides. “You wear battle upon your skin, yet Tony informed me there was none. Where is Rebecca? Have you found her?”</p><p>Tony’s eyes flicked to the door again, then to Clint, who shook his head, and his stomach sank. </p><p>“I—the—she wasn’t anywhere,” Steve finally said, his expression stony, but Tony heard the barely perceptible waver in his voice regardless, and he felt abruptly sick, keeping his eyes fastened on the door, <em>begging</em> for Becca to walk through at any moment, to just <em>be </em>there, to be <em>okay</em>—</p><p>Please, please, don’t let her be dead.</p><p>“Hydra took Becca,” Steve continued, and Tony’s entire <em>world</em> screeched to a halt for a long, tense moment, his breath punching from his lungs in a startled breath—</p><p>“Are you sure?”</p><p>“Hydra took Becca,” Steve repeated, but Tony could again hear the waver in his voice that matched the sudden nausea that crawled up the back of Tony’s throat. “Her tracker’s offline, and we came across some stragglers when we canvassed the building and the rest of the block,” Steve went on, turning his attention from Thor to the others. Tony <em>wanted</em> to do something, to say <em>anything</em>, but he wasn’t quite sure what <em>words</em> were for a moment there, because he couldn’t think past ‘<em>Hydra took Becca’</em>. “They had cyanide capsules,” Steve said. “Spitting Hail Hydra before they died.”</p><p>He took a harsh breath and looked up at Wanda. “You were right. They’re back.”</p><p>Tony’s legs gave out from beneath him as he fell backwards onto his seat. He had not even realised he had risen from his seat in the first place. “Why would they—”</p><p>“It was a trap,” Steve interrupted harshly, anger infused in his every word, but Tony could <em>see</em> him fraying around the edges in the way his hands trembled before Steve pressed his palms flat against the table. “It was specifically set to draw me—or us—in,” he continued tensely. “I don’t know how they knew Becca and I would be there or why they took Becca instead, but I don’t intend to let them keep her long enough to find out.”</p><p>Thunder rumbled <em>loudly</em> above their heads and lightning flashed through Thor’s eyes at the same time as it lit up the night outside, and everyone jumped again, turning to the God of Thunder with wide eyes. Thor looked <em>livid</em>, and Tony suddenly realised he had never seen Thor really <em>angry</em> before, not truly, not even during their most intense battles, and the sight of it was… surprisingly terrifying.</p><p>Outside, a storm unlike anything Tony had ever seen before raged, and Tony wasn’t sure what to do to calm the god down.</p><p>He was, honestly, not sure he wanted to.</p><p>Let Thor unleash his anger on the bastards who’d dared kidnap Becca.</p><p>“J,” he said briskly. “Pull up everything you can find on the gala tonight. I don’t care how many firewalls you have to bypass or how many people will know we’re looking. Just <em>get</em> the info.” He barely waited for J.A.R.V.I.S.’s murmured affirmation before he jumped out of his chair, pulling up a large holoscreen above the table.</p><p>“Tell us everything,” he ordered Steve as soon as he had the screen set up, whirling around to find Steve looking at him with the same kind of desperation that was burning in his own veins.</p><p>“<em>Now</em>, Steve,” he ordered sharply, knowing it would get through to him the quickest.</p><p>Steve faltered for another moment—which Tony <em>guessed</em> he could forgive him for, since he was pretty sure Steve had been up since yesterday morning—before he launched into a detailed explanation of his and Becca’s strategic plans for the gala, all the way down to the color of her <em>dress</em>.</p><p>Tony watched, a little lightheaded and in <em>dire</em> need of caffeine—or like… six 5-hour energy shots—as Steve’s plans were laid out on the holographic screen, in clear and direct terms. Clint and Thor were leaning forward, eyes flitting between Steve and the screen, and even Natasha sat, tensed, on the edge of her seat, staring intently at the screen.</p><p>His hands trembled when he swiped a picture of one of the targets to the side, and he was very much <em>not</em> thinking about how <em>triggering</em>the situation had to be for Becca. She’d been doing <em>so</em> good, and he knew, <em>he knew</em> his Becs was stronger than any of them, but there were limits even to what she could take. He was also very deliberately not thinking of his own issues with being kidnapped—even though he was basically an expert at it now, having been kidnapped like six times before he was even eighteen—or the way he’d found Becca in Iraq, pale and beaten on the floor in a filthy little cell.</p><p>She was <em>important</em> to him, always had been, even though he’d been annoyed as fuck at fifteen to be saddled with the baby at family gatherings. She was <em>his</em> Baby Becs and he <em>hated</em> the thought of someone getting their hands on her and <em>hurting</em> her.</p><p>He’d promised himself, the day he found her, after he’d led the Army to where she was being held, and the day he’d spent sitting by her bed after the Battle of New York, that he’d find a way to keep her safe.</p><p>It’s a pledge he felt truly shamed to have failed at.</p><p>“Wait, wait.” Bruce waved his hand slowly, pulling his glasses down his nose and pinching the bridge between thumb and forefinger and completely interrupting Tony’s train of thought. “We have good contacts in S.H.I.E.L.D. <em>Why</em> are we not calling them in? If we can legitimize the mission through them… Making this an official S.H.I.E.L.D. mission would make it easier, wouldn’t it? We’d have all of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s resources.”</p><p>“Because revealing that S.H.I.E.L.D. or the Avengers purposefully put active agents in that gala would have meant treading on some <em>very</em> powerful toes,” Fury boomed from behind them, causing Tony to nearly jump out of his skin, knocking his knee painfully into the underside of the table. “We cannot afford that right now.”</p><p>Tony swivelled around, because <em>how the fuck </em>did that asshole keep getting into his Tower without his goddamned permission, how did he even <em>know—</em>and then froze, his mind screeching to a stop as he watched Fury approach with Agent Hill—he remembered her, very pretty, badass, had a brief fling with Becca after the fiasco with Romanoff—and…</p><p>Coulson?</p><p>“Bruce, am I drunk?” he choked out, feebly patting around until his fingers found the fabric of Bruce’s shirt to clutch and hang onto. “I’m seeing dead people.” He was vaguely aware of the sound of Clint dropping his mug onto the table, but no one else said anything, and he couldn’t—</p><p>What the fuck.</p><p>“This is a whole new level of madness.” Tony shook his head dramatically. “J, call my therapist. Wait.” He frowned. “I don’t have a therapist. Damn it, call <em>a </em>therapist. If they’ll take me. Will they take me? Fuck. What the absolute <em>fuck</em>, Fury?!”</p><p>“Tony, <em>shut up</em>!” Steve shouted empathically, and Tony <em>would</em> yell back, but just then, he caught sight of Clint’s expression and <em>oh</em>.</p><p>Yeah.</p><p>Tony cringed. He’d only heard of Clint’s relationship with Coulson after the man had died on the Helicarrier—although <em>not so much</em>, apparently—but he’d witnessed Clint’s intense grief first hand. So… realising Coulson wasn’t dead after all?</p><p>Not cool.</p><p>Not cool <em>at all</em>.</p><p>Everyone watched, tensely, as Coulson tentatively moved  towards Clint, before Natasha suddenly stepped into his path—</p><p><em>That</em> wasn’t going to end well.</p><p>“Don’t you <em>dare </em>talk to him,” she hissed, and if Tony had been on the receiving end of that look, he swore he would have just shrivelled up and died because <em>damn,</em> that woman and her icy glares.</p><p>“Nat, I—” Coulson began, falling silent immediately beneath the weight of the Black Widow’s lethal glare.</p><p>“Enough,” Fury cut in, and Tony almost wanted to pout—this was <em>dramatic as fuck </em>and it didn’t even involve him, for once—before he remembered <em>why</em> they were there and promptly felt <em>sick</em>, because how could he—or <em>any of them</em>, except for maybe Clint—have forgotten, even for a <em>second</em>, that Becca was missing and in danger?</p><p>“Yes,” Steve boomed, face stoic but hands clenched into fists nonetheless before he lifted one hand to point at Coulson. “Enough. You… I’m glad you’re not dead. Head’s up would’ve been nice.” He turned to Fury, and Tony was impressed by the way his expression actually grew <em>icier</em>. “And you… when I’ve got Becca back safe and sound, you and I are gonna have a conversation you’re not going to enjoy.”</p><p>It struck Tony then, in a moment of dizzying clarity, how much Steve was struggling to hold onto the Captain America mind set, in a way he hadn’t seen him struggle in…</p><p>God, in <em>months</em>.</p><p>Tony hadn’t understood, initially, that Captain America was Steve’s shield just as much as his vibranium shield was. He hadn’t understood that, to deal with the expectations people put on Steve from the moment they laid eyes on him, Steve hid behind Captain America.</p><p>He showed people what they wanted to see.</p><p>Tony could tell that, in the light of Coulson’s reappearance, in the light of Becca being kidnapped on his watch and the botched mission—<em>Jesus fucking Christ—</em>that Steve was on the verge of losing it though.</p><p>Tony caught Steve’s eye, and the exhausted desperation in the younger man’s eye nearly made him wince. Nearly. Tony was worried about Becca too, the frantic energy humming beneath his skin nearly <em>electric</em> the longer he sat still, but he was willing to concede—<em>just this once</em>—that Steve’s nerves <em>might</em> be slightly more frayed than Tony’s.</p><p>Slightly.</p><p>To be fair, neither of them was quite as badly off as Thor obviously was, vibrating where he stood, lightning continually sparking between his fingers and his eyes flashing white with each clap of thunder and flash of lightning outside. But then again, it wasn’t Tony’s girlfriend and child on the line, now was it?</p><p>God, he didn’t even want to <em>think</em> about Pepper and the baby being in this kind of danger.</p><p>Tony could be a good teammate and take the focus off of Cap and Thor for a bit, though.</p><p>Let it never be said Tony Stark didn’t play well with others.</p><p>Tony cleared his throat loudly, effectively drawing all attention back to him.</p><p>“Not that this isn’t fun,” he drawled sarcastically, rolling his eyes at Fury’s annoyed huff. “But I’d prefer to get back to why we’re <em>actually</em>here.” He gestured back to the large screen, his heart clenching a little at the sight of the photo J.A.R.V.I.S. had pulled up—a picture Pepper had taken during one of the Team Movie Nights Tony had insisted upon, catching Becca in the middle of a peal of laughter at something silly Thor had said to Steve—before he glanced back to Steve and Thor and steeled himself.</p><p>One of them had to keep it together.</p><p>Just figured it’d be him again. Tony never thought <em>he’</em>d be the stable one, but then…</p><p>Here he was.</p><p>Again.</p><p>------------</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>BREAKING: NEW YORK CITY HIT BY UNEXPECTED THUNDERSTORM</em>
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <em>The torrential rains that have been ravaging New York City for the past few hours hit unexpectedly and, reportedly, entirely out of nowhere around 10:30 p.m. today. The rains and repeated strikes of lightning have yet to cause any real, lasting damage, but it is only a matter of time if it continues, according to experts. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>[…] at least 46 people were caught entirely by surprise by the heavy rainfall and needed to be extracted by firefighters from a partially flooded subway tunnel. “[…] situation is, for now, under control, and we’re trying to help those that have been caught up in the storm, but the streets are flooding, and we recommend everyone to remain at home,” said Anahera Taumata, a senior official at the New York City mayor’s office. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>[…] Military units have been deployed to assist emergency workers as they search for [missing] people and clear the streets for emergency vehicles. […] storm unlike any in living memory, according to local authorities. New York’s weather agency has reported up to 6 inches of rain fell within four hours, triggering several flash floods in various subway tunnels, and 4 reported lightning strikes to various buildings. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Amusingly, several New Yorkers have taken to Twitter to ask Thor Odinson, New York’s resident God of Thunder, to take the lightning and rain elsewhere. Interestingly, several weather experts have agreed that such a sudden change in the weather can only be attributed to the God of Thunder. […] no response from Thor or the Avengers yet, although the storm rages on. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>[…] no reports of deaths or serious injuries yet. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> —Pedro Isaac, “New York City Hit By Unexpected Thunderstorm”, DW.com, 2 April 2016 </em>
</p><p>-------------</p><h3>Avengers Tower, New York, Manhattan, New York State, United States of America<br/>11:57 p.m., 2 April 2016</h3><h3>Steve</h3><p>“This has to be a trap.”</p><p>“It’s a one-way video feed,” Tony said scathingly, glaring at Fury. “It can’t be a trap.”</p><p>The tension in the room was so palpable that it thickened the air surrounding them, making Steve feel almost like he was choking. The others were spread haphazardly throughout the room, eyeing the video feed J.A.R.V.I.S. had pulled up after receiving an anonymous email with varying expressions.</p><p>“Is there any way to trace the signal?” Bruce asked reasonably, looking between Tony and Natasha with a furrowed brow. Natasha had taken control over one of Tony’s holographic screens and had, in the past hour and a half, managed to collect a mildly terrifying amount of evidence of Hydra’s continued existence. The things she had found and was currently investigating were so immensely complicated and implicated <em>so many people</em> that it gave Steve a minor headache at just the <em>thought</em> of considering it all.</p><p>She’d managed to uncover a terrifying amount of documents, video footage, photos and other evidence, which was mildly terrifying, considering how hard it had been to find even the slightest <em>scrap</em> of evidence before. When Steve had asked why she was finding so much now, Nat had only muttered, “It’s easy to find things when you know what you’re looking for,” before refocusing her attention on the screen.</p><p>And yet, nothing she’d found—<em>nothing</em> pointed towards there having been plans to take Becca.</p><p><em>Except</em>… Except that there had <em>clearly</em> been a plan.</p><p>The security cameras in and around the building had been masterfully and methodically rerouted to replay previously recorded footage starting three minutes and forty-three seconds before the fire alarm had been triggered until seven and a half minutes <em>after </em>the alarm had been triggered.</p><p>In addition to that, whoever had hacked the feed had done so at the scene—which meant they couldn’t be traced through an I.P. address.</p><p>The kidnapping clearly <em>was</em> premeditated, but whoever had done said premeditating had not left a paper trail for them to find. They’d not left <em>anything</em> for them to find, other than Becca’s glaring absence and the three trigger happy goons Steve and Clint had run into when they’d canvassed the area.</p><p>And now this dark video feed.</p><p>“I don’t care what it is,” Thor thundered, eyes flashing with barely suppressed rage. “Will it help us find Becca?” A particularly loud clap of thunder punctuated his words, making his feelings on the matter abundantly clear. Of course, the thunderstorm outside had been gaining in strength since Thor had learned of the kidnapping.</p><p>Steve winced.</p><p>After their initial explanation of what had happened at the gala, Thor had simply stood, walked out, and—according to J.A.R.V.I.S.—disappeared through the Bifrost. He’d returned not ten minutes later in full armour and with his friends, who had all immediately spread out into the city to track down whatever leads they could find.</p><p>Thor had, after they’d spent a tense few minutes watching him talk to his friends, re-joined the team in the board room, although he’d barely said three words since his return, and most of those words had been used to inform them Heimdall was also searching for Becca with his all-seeing gaze.</p><p>He hadn’t spoken to Steve directly since he’d walked in.</p><p>And Steve <em>hated </em>it.</p><p>He <em>hated</em> that he’d failed Thor <em>and </em>Becca so badly. He’d promised Thor that Becca would be safe, that he’d be by her side the entire time—and because he hadn’t been, because he’d decided trying to dance with the target’s date was a good idea, Hydra had been able to get to Becca.</p><p>He wouldn’t be surprised if Thor wanted to throw him from the Tower.</p><p>Steve kind of wanted to throw <em>himself</em> from the Tower too. </p><p>“As soon as it activates,” Tony said fervently, nodding at Thor. “I don’t care what they’ve done to erase their digital footprints, as soon as they give us an <em>inch</em>, I’m gonna take a fucking <em>mile</em>.”</p><p>Thor nodded curtly. “Very well.” He crossed his arms over his chest and looked away, staring silently out the window into the dark storm.</p><p>Steve wondered, not for the first time, whether the sight of the storm soothed Thor, or if it made his anger and fear all the worse. It was, after all, a physical manifestation of Thor’s emotions—a blatant and palpable demonstration of everything Thor felt for anyone who cared to look.</p><p>Steve had seen Thor’s control over his lightning slip a few times over the years, but every single one of those instances had been… different.</p><p>With the exception of the two-week long thunderstorm that had followed Thor’s return to Earth after his mother and Loki had been killed, every other instance of Thor accidentally letting his lightning loose had been… if not outright funny, then certainly amusing.</p><p>It’d happened once after his and Becca’s second anniversary, when Becca had apparently done something <em>very well</em>—although Steve preferred not to think about <em>what</em> exactly she’d done so well, for his own sanity—and once after Clint and the twins had teamed up to play a prank on Thor, and the god had startled so bad he’d electrocuted the entire Tower.</p><p>Both instances had been <em>hilarious</em>.</p><p>There wasn’t anything funny about Thor’s lack of control now.</p><p>Steve eyed the raging storm—if it even was due to a <em>lack</em> of control on Thor’s part. He didn’t doubt that his friend was <em>terrified</em>, because Steve was too, and it wasn’t even his girlfriend, his child on the line. He wouldn’t be surprised if there was a reason Thor had decided to unleash the thunderstorm to end all thunderstorms on New York.</p><p>Maybe he was hoping to flush out whoever had taken Becca—quite literally.</p><p>Steve <em>would</em> be more concerned about the consequences of letting this storm rage—people could get hurt, there could be floods due to the unrelenting rain—but most of his higher brain function was too occupied with Becca to care.</p><p>While Tony, Bruce and J.A.R.V.I.S. bickered over how they were going to trace the video feed, Steve took his chance. Natasha, Clint and Wanda had their heads bent together to try to figure out <em>why</em> there was a video feed in the first place, and thankfully weren’t paying attention to him either.</p><p>Steve approached Thor, feeling simultaneously nervous and like he was going to get whatever horrible fate he deserved.</p><p>“Hey,” he said quietly once he’d reached his friend, leaning against the wall beside Thor.</p><p>Thor barely even glanced up at him, but nodded in acknowledgement nonetheless.</p><p>“I—” Steve tried, but his voice rebelled, and the words died in his throat. “I’m sorry,” he finally managed. “I promised you she’d be safe, and… I didn’t—I should’ve stayed with her. I’m sorry.”</p><p>Thor heaved a sigh beside him.</p><p>“Steven,” he said wearily. “My friend. I love you very dearly, and I want you to know that the only people I blame are the people that <em>took</em>Becca from me, but…” He sighed again and looked at Steve with dark, haunted eyes. “I do not have it in me to reassure you right now.”</p><p>He turned away from Steve again and stared back out the window.</p><p>Steve opened his mouth, changed his mind, and then closed it again, feeling distinctly nauseated.</p><p>He wasn’t sure how long he and Thor stood there, backs against the wall in silence, before Natasha suddenly announced, “We got something.”</p><p>At the same time, Tony exclaimed, “The feed’s going live!”</p><p>Steve’s stomach dropped away and he felt distinctly nauseous as he eyed the video footage Tony had pulled up on the largest screen in the room. He pushed away from the wall and joined the rest of the team as they gathered around the screen in a tight half circle, each set of shoulders bumping into the next one over.</p><p>And there, right in front of them and yet completely out of their reach, was Becca.</p><p>The camera hardly shook at all, and the quality of the video was exceptionally high—whoever this was, Steve would bet anything they were using a professional camera, which spoke volumes about the level of preparedness of the kidnappers, at least in his opinion.</p><p>When he voiced said thoughts aloud, Natasha nodded in agreement and Tony insisted he had spotted the same thing immediately. Steve didn’t really pay attention to them, trying to focus his gaze on the details of the scene, on anything that might betray where the footage was being filmed or who was filming it—<em>anything</em> that might tell him where Becca was, but the backdrop was a simple, infuriatingly, undoubtedly purposefully white sheet.</p><p>He carefully refrained from looking at Becca, who sat tied to a wooden chair in the middle of the image, because he needed time to steel himself for what he was sure he’d see.</p><p>He remembered what Hydra did to the people they took.</p><p>He remembered what Bucky had looked like right after Steve had pulled him from that concrete slab in Azzano—remembered the blank stare in his best friend’s eye that never really left after.</p><p>Steve wasn’t sure he could stand to see another friend tortured by Hydra.</p><p>When he did finally look at her, she looked relatively unharmed, although she’d clearly not been handled <em>carefully,</em> either. Her hair had fallen from the elegant mess of braids and curls Nat had done for her earlier, and there was an ugly scrape on her forehead. She was paler than Steve thought was healthy, but when she looked up at the camera, he could recognize the defiant anger in her gaze.</p><p>“This is live, yes?” Thor demanded, glancing towards Tony, and Steve wondered if anyone else could tell just how badly Thor’s hands were shaking.</p><p>“Yeah,” Tony nodded. “Yeah. J.A.R.V.I.S. is recording and tracing the feed right now.”</p><p>He looked stricken, and though Steve felt a wave of sympathy for him.</p><p>“Well, <em>smile</em> for the camera, Barnes,” someone drawled on the feed, voice smug and self-satisfied even though it was clearly distorted by some kind of voice modulator.</p><p>When Becca continued to scowl at the person behind the camera, someone heaved an impatient sigh and stomped forward, roughly grabbing Becca’s chin with a gloved hand and forcing her to look directly into the camera. “Come on then,” the man—because it was a man, dressed from head to toe in black, a dark ski mask covering his face—in their field of vision spat. “Smile for your friends, bitch. Gotta say goodbye.”</p><p>Lightning sparked between Thor’s clenched fingers and jumped up his arm, and the thunder outside <em>roared</em> deafeningly loud.</p><p>Steve winced in perfect tandem with the others, and barely resisted the urge to grasp Thor’s shoulder in comfort. The gesture wouldn’t be appreciated right now, he was sure, and he wasn’t very sure he wouldn’t be electrocuted if he touched Thor right now, in any case. Thor certainly didn’t seem entirely aware of the light current of electricity that was dancing from his clenched fists up to his shoulders and the white that crept across his eyes—</p><p>It was, admittedly, slightly terrifying.</p><p>He returned his attention back to the screen, where Becca had bared her teeth in a bloody grin.</p><p>Steve fumed, because it was obvious she’d been slapped hard enough that her upper lip had split, which meant one of those sick sons of bitches had had the gall to hit a pregnant woman hard enough to make her bleed.</p><p>“You gonna scream real’ nice and loud for us, baby?” the male, though still unidentifiable voice taunted on the screen, shaking Becca’s chin roughly while several other voices jeered and the man in the frame cupped his crotch suggestively. Becca winced—a small, minute thing, but Steve had known her long enough to recognize her expression of pain—before she spat at the hand that was holding her.</p><p>“You and your pathetic little needle dick couldn’t make me scream if you tried,” she spat, voice strong and clear, glaring up at him.</p><p>Steve snorted a laugh despite himself, and even Thor smiled.</p><p>Unfortunately the kidnappers were not quite as amused by Becca’s innate inability to stop sassing people, and the man who stood next to Becca in the frame, who’d cupped his crotch to taunt her, slapped Becca <em>hard</em>. Her head whipped to the side and Thor <em>growled</em> as the thunder above them <em>roared</em>, and—miraculously, thankfully—the sound echoed on the video.</p><p>They could <em>hear </em>Thor’s thunder on the video.</p><p>They could <em>hear </em>it.</p><p>She was still in the city—whoever had taken her hadn’t taken her out of the city. And thunder had a limited sound range, at that.</p><p><em>Amateurs</em>, he thought contemptuously.</p><p>Becca slowly swung her head back towards the camera, grinning that same bloody grin. “Oh, you’re fucked now,” she chuckled. “Thor. Babe. There’s only five of them. Fucking <em>annihilate </em>them.”</p><p>“Someone calculate how far that was,” Clint shouted. “How long was the delay?”</p><p>“Couple of seconds tops,” Tony said absently, hands moving feverishly across the keyboard.</p><p>“You insolent <em>bitch</em>,” the man behind the camera spat, lurching forward in a blurred movement to backhand Becca across the face once more, and Thor’s thunder <em>howled</em> so loudly everyone reflexively covered their ears. A massive bolt of lightning struck the nearest building and the city went dark beneath and around them.</p><p>The Tower, mercifully, seemed mostly unaffected, although there were quite a few red alerts popping up at the bottom of the screen. The video feed, too, seemed unaffected, although the lights shining down on Becca <em>had </em>dimmed considerably, and everyone except Becca seemed a little spooked by Thor’s outburst.</p><p>“Well,” the man chuckled, although his voice was just a little shakier than it had been before. “We know they’re watching, then. Good.” He disappeared from the frame again and ordered, “Go get the Soldier.”</p><p>Becca swayed a little against her bonds, clearly dazed by the last blow—though still with a slight smile on her face from the proof of Thor’s wrath—and Steve bit his lip nervously. Even though they knew they were in the city, that they couldn’t be far, he didn’t like that they couldn’t get to her right away, that they couldn’t bring her to the medical floor to have her checked out—</p><p>“Captain America,” the man on the video said, and Steve’s head snapped up. “You’ve been a thorn in Hydra’s side for far too long. Consider this a warning of what’ll happen to everyone you love if you continue to cross us—we know where your friends live, know that certain <em>elderly</em> friends of yours are particularly vulnerable. I hope you’ve enjoyed your time with Barnes while it lasted, because it comes to an end now. Hail Hydra.”</p><p>“What,” Tony said, baffled, and Steve’s stomach roiled—he might throw up; something he’d done maybe thrice since waking from the ice.</p><p>Becca had been shaking her head the entire time the man was speaking, but when she opened her mouth to say something, she seemed to spot something behind the camera and her eyes went wide, her jaw going slack. “Wh—<em>Uncle Bucky</em>?”</p><p>Steve, who’d been reaching for the nearest trashcan—just in case his rebellious stomach decided to stage a full-scale riot—abruptly jerked back towards the screen, wide-eyed and confused, and Becca blinked owlishly at whoever was behind the camera.</p><p>But then, suddenly, before she could gather herself, there was a commotion from the same direction she was staring into as if she’d seen a ghost. It devolved rapidly into unintelligible shouting, and before any of them had any chance to figure out what the hell was happening—</p><p>The camera toppled on its side with a loud crash, and for a second, through blurred, jagged footage, Becca’s feet were visible, before a loud <em>bang</em> startled them all, and the video abruptly cut out.</p><p>“J.A.R.V.I.S.,” Tony inquired shakily, “tell me you have something.”</p><p>“Why would she say that?” Steve whispered, staring at the blank screen without really seeing it, without really… without really <em>thinking</em>.</p><p>Why would Becca say Bucky’s name?</p><p>No one replied to him.</p><p>“I’m sorry, Sir,” J.A.R.V.I.S. responded apologetically, speaking over Steve’s whisper, and Steve felt <em>sick</em>. “The signal was heavily encrypted and was being bounced off servers on every continent. Even with the knowledge they were still in the city, I was not able to narrow down the location. Based on the delay before we heard the echo of Thor’s thunder, however, I estimate that they are no more than five miles away from the Tower.”</p><p>“We have to do something,” Natasha exclaimed a little desperately. “There has to be something—they’re <em>in </em>the city, we <em>know</em> they are in the city—you have to be able to find <em>something</em>.”</p><p>“Their lights weren’t off,” Wanda remarked from next to a quivering Thor, wringing her hands nervously, anxiously. “It was darker, but not fully dark, and I think there was a hum in the background after. They must have an emergency generator. Doesn’t that help?”</p><p>“Why would she say Bucky’s name?” Steve repeated, a little louder, ignoring the slight hysteria in his own voice, choosing to focus on that rather than the gunshot they’d heard at the end of the video, because… because…</p><p>Because she’d said <em>Bucky’s</em> name.</p><p>Steve was unable to ignore it or chalk it up to coincidence—he <em>couldn’t</em>.</p><p>He knew Becca would have known that too.</p><p>“I don’t know, Steve!” Natasha shouted suddenly, startling them all into silence. Steve stared at her with wide eyes—he had never seen Natasha lose her cool like this, and that more than anything shocked him into immediate silence and stillness. She exhaled shakily and continued in a—slightly—calmer voice, “It doesn’t matter why she said Bucky’s name. I’m sorry, but it doesn’t. What we need to focus on right now is <em>where</em> she is and who has her. Once we have her safely back we can look into anything she said and why she said it, but <em>not now</em>.”</p><p>Steve blinked at her. “Okay,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”</p><p>He’d forgotten, for a moment, that he wasn’t the only one that loved Becca—that he wasn’t the only one that was going out of his mind with worry.</p><p>Natasha glared at him for another tense, drawn-out moment before she sighed. “It’s fine.” She looked to Thor, who was still glaring at the screen where Becca had been projected just minutes before, almost like he hadn’t even registered the commotion erupting around him.</p><p>“Thor,” she said, switching gears, her voice softening into something more comforting. “We’re going to find her. Can you meet up with your friends, see if they’ve found something? In the meantime, we can work out a search grid and work in pairs, search more efficiently—they can’t be far, so we have to make sure we get there before they move again. Maybe start on the outer perimeter of a five mile radius and work your way inwards; that’s what I’d do, and you can do it in a snap compared to most of the rest of us.”</p><p>“I’ll go with,” Steve said immediately, because his skin was <em>crawling</em> and he couldn’t <em>stand</em> sitting here and doing <em>nothing</em> any longer, because he knew his brain would drive him mad if he did.</p><p>Natasha nodded. “I’m going with you. Thor, with your friends—there’s four of them, yes?”</p><p>When Thor nodded, Nat smiled tightly. “Split up into groups of two. Tony, I need a map.”</p><p>Tony jerked into movement, blinking blearily but pulling up a map of the city obediently. Natasha walked up to it and indicated a ten-block radius. “You and your friend search this grid. Steve and I,” she indicated another ten-block grid, “will be searching this area. Your other two friends can search here.” She pointed again and Thor nodded sharply.</p><p>“We can search too,” Pietro piped in. “I’m fast, and Wanda can fly; give each of us ten blocks. Wanda and I can clear more than you can and faster, and that safely frees up Thor for the perimeter.”</p><p>Natasha nodded grimly.</p><p>“Be careful,” she told them after she’d indicated a good portion of the city. “Hydra will probably be looking to take you two back as well.”</p><p>Wanda bared her teeth in a snarl. “I’d like to see them try.”</p><p>With that, she slung her arm around her brother’s neck, and they blurred out of sight. Thor looked at the map intently for another few moments before he too, without words, stomped out of the room.</p><p>“Tony,” Nat said sternly, “Keep trying to hack the signal. If you find <em>anything</em>, any clue to narrow our search down, let us know.”</p><p>Tony nodded.</p><p>Clint settled in a corner, dragging several laptops, Starkpads and phones with him—staunchly ignoring Coulson and Fury, who were both pacing in the corridor, barking orders on their phones—and told Nat, “I’ll contact everyone I know—someone’ll know something.”</p><p>Nat nodded again before she turned to Steve. “Well,” she said, eyeing him up and down. “Suit up.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>P.S. Black Lives fucking Matter. They always have, and they always will. <br/>Stay strong, everyone.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. The One Where Everyone Is Shocked</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hi again guys!</p><p>Thanks for sticking around so far :) <br/>I imagine this is the chapter everyone has been waiting for. </p><p>Please, read the tags again before reading this and the next chapter. <br/>Please feel free to DM me about any concerns you have! </p><p>As always, much thanks to Juulna, who has helped me make this entire series a reality!</p><p>Lots of love, <br/>Annaelle</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <h1>Chapter Five</h1><p>
  <strong>
    <em>UNKNOWN KIDNAPPERS LIVESTREAM THREATS TO REBECCA BARNES</em>
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <em>Just a little before midnight today, several social media platforms and news channels picked up on an online video feed that went live with footage of Rebecca Barnes – former U.S. Army Captain, former ambassador to Asgard and S.H.I.E.L.D. liaison to the Avengers – tied to a wooden chair in a non-descript room, clearly beaten and roughed up as several unknown men taunted her and the viewers. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>The video ends abruptly after three minutes and forty-seven seconds when a commotion behind the camera leads to said camera being knocked over before the feed shuts down after what seems to be a gun is fired. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>The kidnappers seem under the impression that the Avengers were also watching the footage and uttered a threat specifically addressed to Captain America in the name of a Nazi-cult Captain America fought and died to stop during the Second World War, named <span class="u">Hydra</span>. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>[…] Barnes attended a charity gala with close friend Captain Steve Rogers earlier tonight. It is currently unknown how and where Barnes was taken. All we know at this time is that around ten p.m. a sudden, unannounced thunderstorm hit New York city that intensified abruptly during the broadcast and has yet to let up. […] weather experts have no other explanation for the storm than Thor’s potential and likely influence—not without considerable provocation. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>[…] no official statements from the Avengers or S.H.I.E.L.D. yet, although many of the Avengers’ and Barnes’ fans have already picked up on the footage and are running through it with a fine-tooth comb and now have started launching large-scale search parties. […] several independent sources have also picked up the footage and are calling into question the authenticity of the video. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>—P. Adams, “Rebecca Barnes Kidnapped by Hydra?”, Daily News Online, 3 April 2016</em>
</p><p>----------</p><h3>Avengers Tower, New York, Manhattan, New York State, U.S.A.<br/>12:14 a.m., 3 April 2016</h3><h3>Tony</h3><p>While Steve was off trying to find the nearest uniform to squeeze himself into, the Widow sidled up to him and handed him a flash drive. He eyed her before frowning at the flash drive in distaste. “I don’t like being handed things,” he said reflexively, but he didn’t set it down.</p><p>If she made a point of giving it to him, there was a good reason.</p><p>“Look at what’s on there,” she said. “I haven’t told Steve. I don’t think we should until we’ve got Becca, at least. He can’t take much more, I don’t think.”</p><p>Tony shot a glance at the hallway, and J.A.R.V.I.S. chimed, “Captain Rogers is currently in the team locker room, changing into his suit and retrieving his shield,” before he could even ask.</p><p>God, he loved J.A.R.V.I.S.</p><p>Tony slotted the drive into the nearest USB port and blinked at the onslaught of files that popped open as soon as his computer recognized the drive and accessed it. There were dozens of documents, pictures and graphs, and the more he read, the sicker Tony felt.</p><p>Phrases like, “destabilized mental health” and “suicidal ideation encouraged” stood out to him, and he jerked away from the screen as though it had physically hurt him, turning back to Natasha incredulously.</p><p>“What is this?” he demanded shakily.</p><p>“I don’t know,” Natasha admitted, and Tony was unnerved to see she looked <em>scared</em>. “Steve never—he never told me about any of this, I don’t think he told Becca either. But if this is real…” She shook her head and leaned her hip against the table. “They either have someone who looks a hell of a lot like him, or they have Bucky Barnes himself. And they used him against Steve.”</p><p>Tony blinked.</p><p>“Bucky Barnes died,” he said stiffly. “Seventy years ago.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Nat said softly. “That’s what we thought about Steve too.”</p><p>Tony opened his mouth to… to say something, <em>anything</em>, because this was <em>horrifying</em>, but then Cap walked back in and Tony hastily collapsed the screen, because Natasha was <em>right</em>.</p><p>Cap wouldn’t take this well.</p><p>He’d nearly flipped out just by the mere mention of Bucky Barnes’ name. Tony had no idea how he’d respond to the possibility that Barnes was actually still out there. Let alone what he’d been up to.</p><p>“You ready?” Cap asked Natasha, who uncrossed her arms and nodded at him.</p><p>“Yeah, let’s go,” she said, striding over to him and leading him out of the room.</p><p>As soon as they were gone, Tony opened the screen again. “Fuck,” he sighed. “<em>Fuck.</em>”</p><p>------------</p><h3>Brooklyn, New York State, United States of America<br/>12:23 a.m., 3 April 2016</h3><h3>Loki</h3><p>As always when Thor unleashed the thunder, the air reeked of burnt ozone. He waded through the rain-soaked streets of New York, each clap of thunder so loud it reverberated into his very bones. He knew the storm that raged was Thor’s doing—how could it be anything but, when the air was saturated with so much <em>seiðr </em>that he could very nearly <em>taste</em> it.</p><p>There had always been an intrinsic quality to Thor’s <em>seiðr </em>that Loki would recognize anywhere, even amidst the chaos of the most turbulent battle.</p><p>He could not deny, even to himself, that its familiar feel was… <em>comforting,</em> in a sense.</p><p>He had spent the past five years in isolation, hidden away from the mortal world in one of          the few sacred places that was left on Midgard—a small island, hidden from mortal eyes, off the coast of Norway near Älesund. The land was still infused with <em>seiðr</em>, its roots tucked into deep, primal wells of power that Loki had not yet been able to unveil—he had, however, used said power to hide himself from Heimdall’s all-seeing eye.</p><p>He’d assumed that, as long as he refrained from using his own <em>seiðr </em>for more than the menial, his presence would be entirely undetectable underneath the land’s stifling presence.</p><p>Considering he had not yet been dragged from his little hiding place by Einherjar, he felt it rather safe to assume his little plot had worked.</p><p>He had spent his time there trying to learn more about the origins of the universe and the stones that he knew Thanos sought and was willing to commit genocide for. He had not learned as much as he would’ve liked, but his knowledge on the subject was, he thought, likely more extensive than most other scholars except Thanos himself.</p><p>It would, hopefully, serve him well.</p><p>Not, of course, that his knowledge of infinity stones was going to do him much good now.</p><p>He surveyed the scene before him with some disdain and refrained from shaking his head. While he may be a god of mischief and chaos, he did so dislike pointless violence and fruitless chaos. He had been summoned here, unable to deny its insistent call, and had transported into what appeared to be a small underground chamber with bodies littered across the floor, bleeding <em>everywhere</em>—he glanced disdainfully at the puddle of blood beneath the closest man that inched closer to his shoes—and noise.</p><p>There were two men left, fighting hand to hand with a speed that might have impressed him if he had not been forcibly removed from the comfort of his home, where he had been taking a break from his endless research to watch a few episodes of a wonderfully bloodthirsty, morally ambiguous television show called Game of Thrones.</p><p>It really was quite inconvenient, being called here just as he’d been rewatching the previous season to prepare for the new episodes in a few weeks.</p><p>“Loki.”</p><p>He glanced around until he found the source of the voice that called to him, and barely repressed a sigh. He should have known, in hindsight, that the only living being with enough sway over him was his brother-betrothed’s favorite little mortal.</p><p>He did owe her a life debt, after all.</p><p>He had also not been quite so far into isolation that he had not heard of his brother’s scandalous and lengthy affair with the mortal. It’d been easy to pretend, when he had been alone, that it did not bother him so much that Thor had been able to move on quite so easily.</p><p>It was much harder, he found, to pretend when he was standing before her and he could see the evidence of her affair with his brother-betrothed with his own eyes. She lay collapsed against a far wall, a small trickle of blood running down from the corner of her mouth to her chin, one cheek bruised rather heavily, both hands cradled protectively around her swollen belly.</p><p>There was a rather lengthy, deep wound on her upper thigh that had been crudely wrapped.</p><p>Loki had, of course, known that his brother-betrothed had done the impossible and impregnated the twit.</p><p>The pregnancy announcement had made international newspapers, and while Loki had been rather shocked—and quietly dismayed—to hear of it, he had also been entirely unsurprised at the same time.</p><p>Thor <em>was</em> a fertility god, after all.</p><p>If anyone would be capable of procreating with someone they should not be able to procreate with, it would be Thor.</p><p>Of course, <em>knowing</em> was different than seeing.</p><p>“Rebecca,” he said smoothly, strolling towards her with an ease he did not feel. The two men that were still fighting did not seem to see him, and that suited him fine—he was here for her, after all.</p><p>“Help us,” she panted, looking up at him desperately. “Get us out of here.”</p><p>The request was, as he expected, dreadfully vague.</p><p>“Are you seriously injured?” he asked, eyeing her contemplatively.</p><p>“Only a little,” she said shakily, rubbing her hand over her stomach nervously. “I don’t think—he hit me and kicked me out of the chair, I twisted my ankle, and they kicked my legs out from under me when they took me, cut out the tracker in my thigh and smashed it… My knee—it hurts, but—the baby… it’s not moving so much, but I don’t think anything’s wrong. I don’t know. I’d know, right?”</p><p>He nodded lightly, although he was altogether unsure if that were true, and bent down to set his brother-betrothed’s intended on her feet. She wavered briefly, unsteady as a newborn fawn, before grabbing hold of his arm and steadying herself.</p><p>“Very well,” he said. “I presume we are to go without arousing suspicion. Shall I dispose of those as well?” He nodded towards the two men that were still fighting, although he noted that one seemed to be tiring rapidly.</p><p>He supposed that would make things a lot easier for him. </p><p>“No!” she shouted abruptly, wavering on her feet again, startling both him and the two men. Both men turned, eyes widening when they saw him.</p><p>“What the fuck?” the shorthaired, armored man shouted, but before Loki could act, the other man, lanky and longhaired, his eyes dark and filled with shadows, snatched a weapon from one of the dead men and fired a volley of shots towards Loki—all meticulously aimed, but dodged easily nonetheless—before he turned to the man beside him and hit him square in the face with his left, metal arm.</p><p>The armored man crumpled into a heap on the floor.</p><p>Loki looked the man with the metal arm warily up and down, but he did not move against him again. “Uncle Bucky,” Rebecca said from beside him, and it took him a moment to realize she was talking to the longhaired soldier. “Bucky, it’s okay, he’s going to help us.”</p><p>“What the hell is a Bucky?” Loki uttered under his breath, but both humans ignored him.</p><p>“He’s coming too,” Rebecca told him sternly, transferring her ironclad grip to the sallow-skinned soldier’s arm, as though Loki was in any position to refuse her. He sighed again but eyed the other man curiously—there was something… oddly familiar about him, although he was certain he had never met him before.</p><p>“Well then,” he nodded, dismissing the thought. “I haven’t all day.”</p><p>He held out a hand at her and wiggled his fingers insistently.</p><p>Rebecca swallowed thickly, blinking slowly at him as she rubbed the side of her belly before she finally reached out and placed her hand in his, keeping a firm grasp on the other man’s arm. “Take us to the Tower,” she said, biting her lip lightly. “Please. I need—we need to go back to the others.”</p><p>To Thor.</p><p>She did not say his brother-betrothed’s name, but she did not need to. Thor hung heavily between them without his name needing to be spoken aloud anyway.</p><p>Loki nodded silently.</p><p>Perhaps it was long since time for him to reveal himself to Thor and to also trust that Thor would protect him from Odin. He lowered his gaze to Thor’s mortal’s swollen belly and swallowed. Perhaps it was time to face the consequences of the choices he had made.</p><p>“To the Tower,” he repeated, curling his fingers over hers. “Hold on tightly. And close your eyes.”</p><p>------------</p><h3>12:34 a.m.</h3><h3>Tony</h3><p>Thor, his friends, Steve, Natasha and the twins were still searching the city block by block, able to cover a lot of ground with Pietro’s superspeed and Thor’s ability to fly. Clint still sat ensconced, himself, in a far corner with three laptops, a tablet and a phone and had declared he was more useful contacting everyone he knew to see if there was anyone who’d heard anything.</p><p>He only looked away from his screen to glare balefully at his apparently-not-so-dead husband, who had set up operations with Fury on Tony’s conference table. Natasha had eventually gone with Cap to make sure he didn’t do anything stupid—which was probably for the best—and Bruce was quietly going through several of the files Natasha had collected earlier.</p><p>Pepper had been here for a little bit earlier, but Tony had managed to convince her to go back to bed. At thirty-two weeks pregnant, she was uncomfortable all the time, and Tony knew their doctors had specifically told her to take it easy and to avoid very stressful situations. </p><p>He had finally convinced her to go back to bed by promising to keep her in the loop on everything, and to let her call in her various contacts to see if she could find out anything more.</p><p>He was pretty sure she was talking to Rhodey now—who was flying back from his conference in Germany immediately—and he felt a little better about leaving her while she was talking to their boyfriend. Rhodey would be able to keep her calm while Tony and the others combed through the city to find Becca.</p><p>“If this is Hydra,” Bruce said quietly from his corner, looking rather green around the edges, “it’s not going to be easy to figure out what’s going on. These records go up to the highest level of the government—they go up to the World Security Council.”</p><p>“Well, when have we ever done things the easy way?” Tony said, mildly hysterical, wringing his hands together. “J.A.R.V.I.S., are you done yet?”</p><p>“No, sir,” J.A.R.V.I.S. intoned politely. “But you do have an incoming call from Peggy Carter.”</p><p>Tony frowned. “Aunt Peg? Put her through.”</p><p>He could do with the distraction, and he felt a little bad that he hadn’t even thought to tell Aunt Peggy and Aunt Becky what was going on yet. “Aunt Peg,” he said jovially when J.A.R.V.I.S. sounded an upbeat little beep to signal he’d connected them. “Good that you called, I’ve got—”</p><p>“Stark!” someone who was very much <em>not</em> Aunt Peggy barked. “It’s Sharon! Aunt Peg told me what happened—we saw the video online—you gotta—is Brock with you?”</p><p>Tony frowned. “Shar,” he said slowly. “No… I thought you were sick? Brock said you w—”</p><p>“He knocked me out and locked me in the basement,” Sharon interrupted, and Tony’s jaw dropped.</p><p>“He—what?”</p><p>“Tony, I don’t have <em>time</em>,” Sharon spat impatiently. “We’ll be there in ten minutes. It’s Brock—this is no fucking coincidence—track his fucking phone, it’s gotta be him.”</p><p>“Are you <em>sure</em>?” Clint blurted, having dropped his tablet to his lap, staring at Tony with wide eyes.</p><p>“Do you think I’d be accusing my <em>fiancé</em> if I wasn’t fucking sure, Barton?” Sharon barked irritably. “Go track his fucking phone, I’ll be there in five.”</p><p>She hung up.</p><p>The silence in the conference room was <em>deafening</em>, and everyone stared at each other for a long, stunned moment before Tony jumped into action. “J.A.R.V.I.S., notify Thor and Rogers, get them back here ASAP, and track Brock Rumlow’s phone and hack into it. I wanna know <em>everything,</em> where he is, how long he’s been there, what porn he last Googled—just get into his phone and find everything.”</p><p>“Yes sir,” J.A.R.V.I.S. said.</p><p>Fury cleared his throat and said, “Rumlow should be on a two-week mission with STRIKE. His personal phone will likely ping in his locker at HQ.”</p><p>“Then get me access to his work phone,” Tony said impatiently. “You heard Sharon—it’s probably—”</p><p>“Pardon the interruption,” J.A.R.V.I.S. cut in. “There is a mild disturbance in the lobby. I suggest your presence right away, sir. As well as Clint and Director Fury.”</p><p>Tony blinked. “What? What do you mean a disturbance?”</p><p>“It appears…” J.A.R.V.I.S. said slowly, “…a rift opened up, and Becca Barnes, Loki and an unknown third man have stepped out.”</p><p>-----------</p><h3>12:36 a.m.</h3><p>After the tensest elevator ride ever, the doors opened up into the lobby.</p><p>There was a tight ring of security guards surrounding their unexpected guests, and Tony wondered if any of what he was seeing was real. Loki was dead and Becca had been kidnapped less than two hours ago—neither of them should be standing in his lobby like nothing had happened.</p><p>Well… Becca did look paler than he had seen her in years—possibly even paler than she had been when he had blown through the metal door in the dank little prison cell they’d kept her in in Iraq.</p><p>She’d been hit, clearly, with dried blood running from the corner of her mouth down to her chin, and dark bruises were forming on one side of her face. She was leaning rather heavily on the dark-haired man clad in black under-armor, fingers white-knuckling in the black fabric, and she looked like she was about to throw up. There was a crude, bloodstained bandage around her upper thigh and Tony felt nauseated—they’d <em>cut </em>the tracker out?!</p><p>Said dark-haired man had a gun pointed at one of the nearest security guards with one—was that metal?—arm, the other around Becca’s waist, keeping her upright.</p><p>Loki—what the actual fuck—looked rather perturbed and was frowning at her.</p><p>“You said you felt fine when we left,” Loki said accusingly.</p><p>Well. Tony blinked and glanced to Clint, who stood to his left. He certainly <em>sounded</em> like Loki—but then again, Loki had been dead for five years.</p><p>“I’m just nauseated,” Becca said, wavering where she stood. “My leg hurts.”</p><p>“Becca,” Tony hissed impatiently, worriedly, raising his gauntlet to aim at the man with the gun. “Let one of the guys help you and get away from them.”</p><p>“No,” Becca refused immediately, tightening her grip on the dark-haired man’s shoulder and drawing a highly reluctant Loki closer by his hand. “He saved my life, Tony. Both of them. They’re on my side.”</p><p>Tony opened his mouth to protest—why, why did the people in his life have no sense self-preservation whatsoever—when the doors behind the trio burst open and Cap, Thor and Nat burst inside, stopping short as soon as they spotted Loki, Becca and Rambo.</p><p>Said trio turned slowly to face the new arrivals, and the metal-armed man stiffened as his eyes went wide beneath the poor excuse of eyeliner, and even Loki seemed at a loss for words. Thor looked like he was about to burst—whether into tears or laughter was unclear, and Cap looked like he’d been punched in the face.</p><p>Tony moved slowly around the group, making sure he was positioned a little in front of Rogers, Thor and Romanoff and facing Becca and her new strays. The metal-armed guy looked at Rogers in a way Tony couldn’t quite decipher though, but that looked like Rogers was both the cause and solution to every single one of Terminator’s problems, and...</p><p>Yeah, Tony commiserated with a shrug. That probably sounded right.</p><p>“Steve,” the man growled, though it looked like it hurt to speak at all, and Tony was entirely taken aback by the sound of the shield falling to the tiled floor behind him.</p><p>Cap let a sound not unlike a fucking whimper fall from his lips, and choked, “Bucky?!” and...</p><p>Oh. Oh. Shit.</p><p>Tony looked again, and yeah, now that it was out there, he definitely saw the resemblance. Barnes’ face scrunched up when Steve spoke, shaking his head jerkily as he glared at Steve.</p><p>“Who the hell is Bucky?”</p><p>Oh. Well... Tony grimaced at Becca.</p><p>That wasn’t good.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. The One Where All Avengers Need a Hug</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hi everyone! </p><p>I hope everyone is doing okay and you're all able to stay safe! &lt;3</p><p>This is the last chapter of this part. </p><p>Thank you all so much for sticking with me for so long! <br/>There will be one more (short) work wrapping things up, with Bucky and the others recovering and tying up things neatly (possibly) that I'm working on right now. </p><p>Please, read the tags and be sure to leave a comment with your thoughts! </p><p>Love<br/>Annaelle</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <h1>Chapter Six</h1><p>
  <strong>
    <em>Thule Society <br/>Project Persuasion </em>
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <em>[United States of America]                                             <strong>Mission date(s):</strong> [07/27/2011] to [09/15/2011]</em>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>Mission objective</em>
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <em>Remanding of the Target to Thule Society custody for optimal reconditioning</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Destabilisation of target’s mental health by use of Asset’s previous relation with the target – stage sightings of the Asset to ensure a shock to the target’s system and proceed to further intimidation (scripted recordings) until the target is suitably malleable and open to recalibration. </em>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>Mission target </em>
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <em>Captain Steve Rogers – threat level 9 </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Status: extremely enhanced </em>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>Mission dates</em>
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span class="u">27/07/2011</span>
  </em>
</p><ul>
<li><em>Establishing surveillance in target residence </em></li>
<li><em>Briefing Asset </em></li>
</ul><p>
  <em>[…]</em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span class="u">19/08/2011 </span>
  </em>
</p><ul>
<li><em>Mission progress report Asset</em></li>
<li><em>Reconfiguration and recalibration Asset </em></li>
</ul><p>
  <em>[…]</em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span class="u">15/09/2011</span>
  </em>
</p><ul>
<li><em>Progression to Phase Two </em></li>
</ul><p>
  <em>[…]</em>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>Team members</em>
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <em>Brock Rumlow</em>
  <em> – STRIKE handler</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Alexander Pierce</em>
  <em> – Asset primary handler</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Jasper Sitwell</em>
  <em> – mission planning </em>
</p><p>
  <em>ELISA SINCLAIR – head technician and physician</em>
</p><p>-----------</p><h3>Lobby of the Avengers Tower, New York, Manhattan, New York State, U.S.A.<br/>12:24 a.m., 3 April 2016</h3><h3>Bucky Barnes / The Asset </h3><p>The Asset eyed the large blond man dressed as a walking flag in confusion.</p><p>The woman—<em>sister, Rebecca, Becky, little Cece</em>—leaned heavily on the metal shoulder, and the Asset briefly considered that that <em>could not</em> be comfortable before his eye was drawn back to the walking American flag, who looked alarmingly like he was about to burst into tears.</p><p>“Bucky,” the man said again, blue eyes wide and watery. “You’re Bucky.”</p><p>The Asset blinked. The name did not mean much to him, but there was something about the blond man—<em>Steve, Stevie, Captain, sweetheart—</em>that made the Asset’s insides churn and twist, that made his flesh hand itch to reach out to him, to touch and <em>soothe</em>, to…</p><p>He<em>—it </em>was a weapon.</p><p>It could not soothe, it could not comfort, and it couldn’t find the small ticklish spot just above the blond man’s left elbow and press his fingers to it.</p><p>“You are,” the woman—<em>Rebecca</em>, a little voice in his head supplied again, <em>Becky</em>—said to him, her fingers digging into his flesh arm. “Bucky Barnes. Remember?” The Asset—<em>Barnes?</em>—looked down at her, wrinkling its nose in confusion before it decided that there were more pressing matters at hand; mainly that the—Rebecca, that Rebecca seemed to be resting more and more of her weight on him.</p><p>“You are injured,” the Barnes-Asset pointed out. “You require medical assistance.”</p><p>Rebecca looked up at him blearily. “Alright,” she nodded, before turning to the strange man in green who had taken them from the facility and brought them here. “You need to—you need to keep him safe. Make sure no one can hurt him anymore—protect him.”</p><p>The man looked quite baffled, but—to the Barnes-Asset’s surprise—only nodded.</p><p>“Okay,” Rebecca said. “Okay, good. Bu—Bucky, you go with him. He’ll keep you safe.”</p><p>Barnes-Asset frowned. “The Asset is required to remain in close proximity to ensure your safety,” it protested lightly. “The Asset is not efficient when it is not within range.”</p><p>“You don’t need to protect me,” she said immediately, although the Asset privately thought the argument lost most of its merit when she swayed so violently both he and the man in green needed to take her arms to steady her. “Others will take care of me,” she continued, although the Asset noted she was paling rapidly and swaying again.</p><p>“Rebecca,” the other, bigger blond carrying a large hammer called out, voice wavering, and when the Barnes-Asset looked at him, the man had moved forward a few paces, holding out a hand towards Rebecca, expression pleading. “Please, let me—”</p><p>“Thor,” Rebecca breathed, and she started forward, out of the Barnes-Asset’s grasp, stumbling forward into the large man’s waiting arms. The Barnes-Asset watched as she clutched at the large man’s impressive bicep with one hand, dropping the other to her swollen belly. “We need Eir,” she told the man seriously. “I really don’t feel good, and I need Eir—now.”</p><p>Before anyone could say more, she went limp in the other man’s grasp.</p><p>There was a beat of silence before thunder outside <em>roared</em> and the big blond man bellowed <em>“Heimdall!” </em></p><p>An explosion of colors filled the entire space abruptly and the sound of it—oddly silent but inexplicably loud at the same time—thundered and echoed in the Barnes-Asset’s skull, leaving its ears ringing and its body sluggish and creaky.</p><p>When it looked up, the spot where the bigger blond and Rebecca had stood was empty, an intricate symbol burned into the tiled floor where they had stood. The Barnes-Asset looked at his own big blond, who was gazing between the Asset and the spot where Rebecca had stood with a torn expression and swallowed thickly.</p><p>“Well,” the man in green said. “That was dramatic.”</p><p>------------</p><h3>Steve Rogers, Becca Barnes and Thor’s Floor in the Avengers Tower, New York, Manhattan, New York State, U.S.A.<br/>3:02 a.m., 3 April 2016</h3><h3>Steve  </h3><p>Steve felt like he’d aged twenty years in the past five hours.</p><p>He felt wrung out and exhausted, his body sore and sluggish like it hadn’t been since before he’d received the serum. He would probably have to call Karen-the-therapist soon, would need to schedule more sessions than he’d had in the past year…</p><p>He heaved a sigh and ran a hand down his face.</p><p>He had no idea what would be happening now.</p><p>He wasn’t sure if Becca and Thor had made it to Asgard alright, or even if Becca was alright—Loki had been frustratingly uninformed on her physical condition, and Bucky hadn’t been able to provide more than a cursory “in need of medical attention”—and yet he found it incredibly hard to <em>care</em>.</p><p>He found it <em>so insanely difficult</em> to focus on Becca when <em>Bucky</em> was sitting next to him, breathing and alive and <em>real</em>. He looked to the other man, who sat stiffly on one of the highbacked chairs in his kitchen, eyeing everything and everyone in the room with a great deal of suspicion.</p><p>He was afraid to think very hard about the circumstances that had led to Bucky sitting alive, breathing and confused on one of Steve’s dining chairs.</p><p>He was pretty sure that if he <em>did</em> think about it too deeply—if he did consider what caused the vacant look in Bucky’s eye, what had happened to him that made him look at Steve with a confused frown—he would lose his marbles and go on a killing spree to murder every single one of the sick sons of bitches that had ever dared lay hands on <em>his</em> Bucky, and Steve <em>couldn’t</em>.</p><p>Bucky needed him here, not off in the world burning down Hydra bases.</p><p>“I will help him sleep,” Loki spoke quietly, drawing Steve’s eyes to where the God of Mischief stood, still as tall and healthy as the last time Steve had seen him. Steve wanted to marvel over Loki’s miraculous revival, his stunning appearance, but he found he barely had the energy to care overly much anymore.</p><p>Bucky, who had since moved from his perch on the dining room chair and was prowling around the room, examining corners and books and everything he could get his hands on, looked up at Loki when he spoke, blue eyes wide and apprehensive.</p><p>He had not spoken since the lobby, since he had told Becca that he needed to stay close to her to protect her, since she had told him Loki would care for him.</p><p>He looked so scared and lost it made Steve’s heart hurt.</p><p>“Yeah,” Steve nodded mechanically. “As long as he’s… He’ll be safe, right?” He looked up at Loki with tears still burning in his eyes, breath wheezing in his lungs.</p><p>The god nodded, face twisting into an expression of compassion. “I owe Rebecca a debt. I will not let any harm come to him, I assure you.” They were both silent for a moment before Loki spoke again. “I remember what it is like to be unmade. To be… <em>ripped</em> apart and put back together into something you are not. I will not allow him to suffer. I give you my word, Captain.”</p><p>Steve nodded jerkily and swallowed thickly, wrapping his arms around himself to… to keep himself from falling apart all over again. “Just…” Steve hesitated. “Ask him. If he wants—don’t just… He deserves to have choices.”</p><p>He watched as Loki approached Bucky, offering the other man a smile and a few words, to which Bucky nodded jerkily before Loki waved his hand and Bucky’s head slumped back, his entire body relaxing into what Steve hoped was a peaceful, dreamless sleep as Loki manoeuvred him onto the couch.</p><p>“Why didn’t you tell Thor you were alive?” he blurted, wincing a little at his own lack of tact when Loki spun around with an incredulous expression on his face.</p><p>“It was too dangerous,” Loki finally allowed, wrinkling his nose a little as he moved back to the kitchen, where Steve stood leaning against the counter. “The All-Father would have me executed for treason in a heartbeat should he find me, and Thor along with me if he tried to hide me.”</p><p>Steve opened his mouth, but he found he really didn’t have the words to express what he needed to say. “I’m sorry,” he finally settled on, softly patting his hand on the back of Loki’s shoulder after a brief moment of hesitation. “That must’ve been an incredibly difficult decision to make.”</p><p>Loki looked at him as though he’d grown two heads for a long, tense moment before he nodded. “It was. It helped, knowing Thor had the Warriors Three, Sif and you and Rebecca to care for him.”</p><p>Steve looked down and sighed, rubbing his hand through his hair when J.A.R.V.I.S. chimed apologetically from the ceiling, “I apologize for the interruption, Captain, but the Lady Carter has requested you join her on the common floor for a short moment.”</p><p>He’d forgotten Peggy and Sharon were on their way here at all, too caught up by Becca showing up in the lobby with <em>Bucky</em> and Loki of all people, and he immediately felt like the worst friend in <em>history</em>, because as much as he loved Peggy and liked Sharon, he wasn’t sure he’d be able—and, God forbid, willing—to make time for them right now… now that Bucky was back.</p><p>If the glimpses Loki had caught in Bucky’s mind were any indication, Bucky was going to need all the support in the world to recover from his ordeal, and Steve couldn’t imagine a world where he wouldn’t provide any and everything Bucky could ever need.</p><p>Steve just didn’t know how to fit his other friends in there too.</p><p>“Go,” Loki said calmly, slipping onto one of the barstools and raising an eyebrow when Steve didn’t move. “I’ll keep watch. No more harm will come to him.”</p><p>Steve nodded mechanically, moving towards the door even though there was nothing he wanted to do less. He didn’t want to see the others, didn’t want to see Peggy or Sharon, didn’t want to have to deal with the unavoidable fall-out of Steve’s formerly-dead boyfriend suddenly turning up again.</p><p>He just wanted to stay here and sit beside Bucky, run his fingers through that long, unkempt hair and make sure that Bucky wasn’t hurting anymore.</p><p>He got onto the elevator anyway.</p><p>—————</p><h3> Natasha</h3><p>Rebecca Barnes Sr. paced around the couch impatiently, tutting disapprovingly every time she passed the elevator. Sharon sat beside her aunt on the couch, a nurse from the medical floor kneeling by her feet with a medical bag folded open to display an array of bandages, band-aids, disinfectant and cotton balls, checking her for more injuries and helping her care for the minor scrapes and bruises that littered her skin.</p><p>The sight of the wounds made something deep in Natasha howl with rage, because the other woman was her friend and a good person, and she’d deserved <em>much</em> better than her fiancé cracking her head open on the dresser and locking her up in their basement.</p><p>The nurse had already stitched up the large, deep gash that ran diagonally up from Sharon’s left eyebrow into her hair and applied a cooling gel to the swelling around her eye. “You’ll need an x-ray,” the man said in a soft, calming voice. “I don’t think it’s broken, but there might be hairline fracture or a crack that I can’t feel.” He gently pressed his fingers to the bruised and swollen skin just below Sharon’s eye and sighed. “Just to be sure.”</p><p>“I’m not going now,” Sharon said, her voice steely, avoiding the nurse’s eye steadily. “I’m fine. We have other things to worry about than whether or not Brock cracked my eye socket.”</p><p>“Miss Carter,” the nurse said slowly, but Sharon shook her head sharply, pushing his hand away.</p><p>“I said no,” she bit out. “If he did, it’s been broken for at least forty-eight hours. I’m sure I’ll be fine if I wait a few more hours to get it checked out.”</p><p>The nurse stared long and hard at her, and Nat was a little impressed that the man didn’t even flinch when Sharon glared back at him, before he sighed and relented. “Alright,” he said. “Fine. But I expect you down at medical by the end of the day.”</p><p>“Fine,” Sharon said, staring ahead again, eyes hard and focused on the picture of the entire Avengers group and most of their friends and family at the last 4<sup>th</sup> of July/Steve’s birthday barbecue, ignoring the nurse as he reached out to tend to her split lip and visibly forcing herself not to respond as her aunt patted a comforting hand on her thigh.</p><p>The man heaved a sigh, but accepted defeat and stood, packing up his medical bag.</p><p>“End of the day, okay? We gotta check out your eye,” he told Sharon sternly, pointing at her until she nodded grudgingly.  The man sighed again but turned and left without further comment.</p><p>When the elevator doors closed behind him, Tony turned and looked at her, frowning severely, and Natasha sighed too. She’d prefer to wait until Steve was here to discuss everything she and Tony had found, but there were a few things they needed to get out of the way without him interrupting every five minutes to correct them.</p><p>“We have to talk,” she said, stepping forward so all eyes were on her.</p><p>The room <em>was</em> full. Bruce and Clint had followed her and Tony up here once Steve had taken Barnes and Loki up to his own floor, and Sharon, Peggy Carter and Becky Barnes had arrived not ten minutes later. Fury, Maria and Phil had, thankfully, let themselves get booted from the Tower, although Natasha didn’t doubt they’d be back—if not for Loki, then for Barnes.</p><p>“I imagine we have to talk about a great many things,” Peggy Carter said kindly. “But I suppose you have something specific in mind, dear.”</p><p>“Yes,” Natasha said curtly, turning to Tony.</p><p>They’d not <em>really</em> discussed how much they would tell the others—not without Steve present.</p><p>“The man upstairs with Steve,” she said slowly, “he might be more than just Bucky Barnes.” She and Tony exchanged another glance, and she plowed on before the others could cut in with questions. “We think he might be the Winter Soldier.”</p><p>Sharon and Peggy Carter both inhaled sharply, and Clint startled, but the others looked a little uncomprehending.</p><p>“He’s…” Nat sighed.</p><p>“He’s a myth,” Peggy said sternly. “I looked for the Winter Soldier for the last twenty years of my career—he’s a ghost.”</p><p>“Yeah, well,” Tony interjected, pulling up a holographic screen with the documents Nat had given him earlier. “Whatever he is—whatever he became with them… they used him to try to break Steve.” Peggy let out a dry sob and pressed trembling fingers to her mouth, reaching out to pull the holographic screen closer, to read through the horrifying content of the reports.</p><p>“Are you sure this is about Steve?” Sharon asked skeptically. “All the names are redacted.”</p><p>“The dates match up,” Tony said. “With his breakdown. Before he tried to jump off the Tower. The dates, the times—all of it. I called his therapist, but she wouldn’t say if he ever discussed seeing Barnes with her without his permission, so…”</p><p>“We’ll have to bring it up with him,” Clint said.</p><p>Tony nodded with a grimace.</p><p>“You’re <em>sure</em>?” Becky Barnes said quietly. “Is it worth exposing him to a trigger?”</p><p>“We have to know,” Natasha said quietly. “And he needs to know. Think of what this means,” she gestured to the documents. “If it really is Bucky Barnes up there, and this document <em>is</em> real… Think of what they’d have to have done to him to make him consciously hurt Steve, of all people. We need to be prepared for the possibility that…”</p><p>She bit her lip and glanced towards Becky Barnes—who was, she realized with a jolt, Bucky’s little sister. “…not everyone who has been exposed to that level of brainwashing can recover.”</p><p>“He’s my brother,” Becky Barnes said in a small, soft voice. “And Steve loves him. We can’t—we can’t give up on him.” She looked around at the others when no one spoke, and Natasha felt a great wave of sympathy for the older woman. “We’re <em>not</em> giving up on him before he’s even had a chance,” Becky Barnes said again, sternly.</p><p>“No one’s giving up on him, Aunt Beck,” Tony said. “But we have to consider the possibility.”</p><p>Bruce heaved a sigh. “Depending on the kind of neurological damage they inflicted on him, it is a valid concern.” Natasha eyed the scientist concernedly—it didn’t look like he’d slept at all in the past forty-eight hours—before she turned her gaze to the twins.</p><p>They’d been silent the entire time, and since they were the only ones who’d been—however unwittingly—a part of Hydra recently, they might have valuable insights.</p><p>Wanda, who undoubtedly felt her gaze, looked up.</p><p>“I remember they spoke of a chair,” Wanda said. “That’s why we ran from them. They thought I didn’t understand if they spoke English—they talked about a chair to make us comply. Maybe that’s what they used on him.”</p><p>“Maybe,” Nat conceded. “We’ll have to see what he remembers.”</p><p>Everyone fell silent, and Nat noted absently that Sharon had swiped one of the nurse’s cotton balls and was dabbing at her split lip and scraped chin lightly. “J.A.R.V.I.S.,” Tony said after another beat, pacing restlessly behind the sofa, his hair standing up in tufts and dark circles lining his eyes. “Is Cap coming down here or what?”</p><p>“Yes,” J.A.R.V.I.S. replied pleasantly as the elevator doors opened and Steve emerged. Nat was actually vaguely impressed that they’d been able to pull Steve away from Barnes—if the man upstairs was indeed who Becca, and now Steve, seemed to think he was.</p><p>She had seen Steve grieve Bucky Barnes for years, had been privy to and part of a few private conversations about Steve’s previous relationship with him, and she knew that prying Steve away from Barnes now would likely require a crowbar and more than a few bribes.</p><p>Or, apparently, a request from Peggy Carter.</p><p>Steve walked out of the elevator looking decidedly worse for the wear already, and she hadn’t even brought up the reports they’d found yet. His eyes were rimmed with red and stained with dark circles and his hair was messy. He had only changed out of the top of his uniform, which left him in his dark blue uniform pants and boots and a dark, tight compression shirt—something that attracted attention of everyone in the room even in the current situation.</p><p>Natasha barely refrained from rolling her eyes.</p><p>They had more important things to deal with than the potential impropriety of Steve’s wardrobe.</p><p>“Steve,” Becky Barnes said immediately, springing back up from the couch with surprising vigour and flexibility for a ninety-year-old. “Is it really—how—how’s he—<em>how</em>, Steve?” She grasped at Steve’s forearms and he held her steady with soft, careful hands.</p><p>“I don’t know,” Steve admitted, sounding small and unsure, and for the first time in years, Natasha remembered how he’d looked in those first few months after they’d gotten him out of the ice. “Loki’s—Loki’s watching him. He helped him sleep.”</p><p>“I want to see him,” Becky told him mulishly, and for the first time Nat <em>really</em> saw the resemblance between Becky and Becca. They had the same stubborn set to their jaw, and Steve reacted almost exactly the same way to Becky’s stubborn glare as he did to Becca’s. If the situation hadn’t been quite so dire, she might’ve smiled.</p><p>“Yeah,” Steve nodded, a deeply resigned expression on his face. “Okay. Has anyone heard from Becca and Thor?” He looked away from Becky, glancing at Nat and Peggy in turn, before looking at Tony. “Anything at all?”</p><p>“No,” Tony shook his head. “Nothing.”</p><p>Nat ignored the painful twist in her chest at the reminder that no one actually knew how Becca was doing and focused instead on the problems that she <em>could</em> fix.</p><p>Steve guided Becky back to the couch where Peggy sat before he shuffled over to the twins and unceremoniously dropped himself on the seat between them. He grinned tiredly at Pietro when the youth stuck his tongue out at him and slung an arm around Wanda when she leaned into him.</p><p>It was sweet, Natasha realized with a pang, to see him with them.</p><p>They looked up to him, had trusted him before they’d trusted any of the rest of them. Wanda had confided to her once that Steve was like the big brother she and Pietro had always wanted, and Nat <em>really</em> saw that now—Steve was drawing as much comfort from their proximity as they were from his.</p><p>That was… that was good, considering the conversation they needed to have.</p><p>Sharon set down the cotton ball she had taken from the nurse, apparently entirely unaware of the thin trickle of blood that ran down from her lip to her chin immediately. Instead, she leaned forward, eyeing Steve with a breathless kind of intensity that Natasha recognized all too well. She had spent enough time focusing on the mission, on her tasks, on erasing the red in her ledger, to know when someone was trying to avoid thinking about their personal burdens by focusing on work.</p><p>She didn’t begrudge the woman her focus.</p><p>If anything, she understood.</p><p>“We have some things to discuss,” Natasha said, determinately ignoring the feeling of déjà-vu that hit her abruptly. She took a seat beside Sharon and directed her gaze towards Steve. “It’s not… it’s something that might trigger you—but we think you need to know.”</p><p>Steve looked at her with wide, blue eyes, chewing on his lip for a second before he said, “Tell me.”</p><p>Tony stepped forward and drew up another holographic screen, this one a lot smaller, more discreet, and pushed it towards Steve. “We found this,” he said slowly. “The dates… I know it’s really hard to talk about, to think about, but…” Tony cut off and Natasha sighed, stepping in smoothly.</p><p>“Steve, this implies that they used Barnes to destabilize your mental health. And we—” She glanced towards Tony. “Did you see him? Is that why… is that how—”</p><p>Steve looked like a deer caught in headlights, his eyes wide and startled, and Natasha felt <em>horrible </em>for bringing it up, but they needed to know. If Hydra had brainwashed Barnes to the point that he was willing to hurt <em>Steve</em> of all people, they needed to prepare to deal with that.</p><p>“Before we get into that,” Peggy cut in, and Steve looked so relieved he might cry, until Peggy—delicate as ever—said, “The man upstairs… How sure are we that he is, in fact, Bucky Barnes?”</p><p>“I <em>know</em>,” Steve insisted passionately. “I would—I would <em>know</em> if it wasn’t him.”</p><p>“Steve,” Becky Barnes said. “We have to know for sure. What if he’s a clone or something?”</p><p>“He isn’t,” Loki said, suddenly appearing in their midst with a flash of bright green light. Clint shot off an arrow that passed right through the god without doing any damage whatsoever before Natasha had a chance to shoot him, and when she looked, everyone except Steve and Becky Barnes had drawn some sort of weapon and had it aimed at Loki.</p><p>The man barely even blinked. “Honestly, no need for those. I am here on behalf of Rebecca, and as long as I am under her command, I am of no danger to you.” Clint scoffed loudly and Natasha could see his and her own scepticism mirrored on several of the faces in the room.</p><p>“He owes her a life debt,” Steve piped in. “He’s telling the truth. She told him to protect Bucky so that’s what he’ll do.”</p><p>Loki grimaced in distaste but didn’t contradict Steve either.</p><p>Huh.</p><p>Nat eyed him. Interesting.</p><p>“How do you know it is Bucky Barnes?” she asked him cautiously. “You never met the man.”</p><p>“Because,” Loki drawled, gesturing towards Steve with a bored expression. “<em>He</em> is whole when he stands beside Barnes. It was a rare thing, you know, to see a man alive in <em>lìkami</em> and <em>munr</em>, absent <em>hugr</em>. Now that Barnes is beside him, his <em>hugr</em> is returned, and he is whole. Surely even you can see it.”</p><p>Natasha blinked.</p><p>She’d only understood about half of what Loki had said, and yet, she knew what he meant anyway. There <em>was</em> something different about Steve—she hadn’t noticed before, but… she had never noticed that he slumped his shoulders, before. She’d never quite noticed that he tried to make himself smaller, that he seemed <em>dimmed</em>, whereas now…</p><p>It was like he was <em>lighter</em>, like the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders.</p><p>“Okay,” Nat said, and though Clint and Tony both looked at her incredulously, she turned back to Steve. “Okay. So he’s really your Bucky Barnes. She gestured towards the documents still displayed on the holographic screen and said, gently, “Did you see him? Is that why you felt so horrible?”</p><p>Steve bit his lip harshly, and he seemed to shrink in on himself before he whispered, “I thought… I thought I was imagining it. Karen said it was normal, to see the people you’d lost, so I thought—I just thought I was going through something normal.”</p><p>Wanda rubbed her hand over Steve’s arm, and Pietro leaned against him, and Natasha felt almost bad for asking, but this was what they needed to know.</p><p>“He started whispering things,” Steve admitted in a small, trembling voice. “Played into the survivor’s guilt. He told me he was waiting for me, that… that I shouldn’t keep him waiting any longer, and that all the others were with him too, that my <em>mam</em>—”</p><p>He broke off abruptly and looked away, and Natasha diligently pretended she didn’t see him wipe away the small tears that had run down his cheeks.</p><p>“That’s enough,” Becky Barnes said. “Does that match what the file said?”</p><p>“Yes,” Natasha nodded. “Hydra used him against you. They knew who he was to you.”</p><p>Steve snorted a weak little laugh. “Well, at least they’re quicker on the uptake than the rest of the U.S. I’m pretty sure our relationship was the worst kept secret in the Army—I was so surprised people didn’t actually know when I woke up…”</p><p>Nat smiled a little.</p><p>“He is the Winter Soldier,” she said. “A ghost story.” Steve looked at her with those wide, baby blue eyes of his, reminding her distinctly of a confused puppy, and she huffed a sigh. “Most of the intelligence community doesn’t believe he exists. He’s credited with over two dozen assassinations in the last fifty years.”</p><p>Steve looked distinctly nauseated. “How—how do you know it’s him?” he stuttered. “If he’s a ghost story… How do you know that it’s him?”</p><p>She hesitated.</p><p>This would not be an easy thing to explain to Steve. Not, she thought, because he would react poorly or because he would not understand, but because she was sure it would break his heart.</p><p>“We have a history,” she finally said. “Five years ago, I was escorting a nuclear engineer out of Iran, somebody shot out my tires near Odessa. We lost control, went straight over a cliff, I pulled us out, but the Winter Soldier was there. I was covering my engineer, so he shot him straight through me. Before that…” she stilled and looked down at her hands, feeling distinctly vulnerable and exposed. “…Before that he and I were in the Red Room together. They let him train us.”</p><p>She had been right.</p><p>Steve looked faintly green.</p><p>“Nicholas is pulling up everything S.H.I.E.L.D. has on the Winter Soldier,” Peggy Carter said primly, leaning forward a little. “But we need to decide if we want to keep this under wraps, and if so, <em>how</em>.”</p><p>“What do you mean?” Steve croaked, and Nat diligently pretended not to notice that his eyes were bloodshot and shiny.</p><p>Sharon huffed and shook her head. “Think, Steve. Use that big, strategic brain of yours. Barnes obviously wasn’t supposed to <em>save</em>Becca, and he <em>clearly</em> wasn’t supposed to be discovered. We need to figure out how to handle the media angle <em>if</em> this gets out, and we need to know what to tell other letter agencies when they inevitably come knocking.”</p><p>“What we need to know is who was aware of Barnes’ real identity,” Natasha pointed out.</p><p>“Well, Brock knows,” Sharon bit out angrily, tossing the cotton ball she’d been using to disinfect her split lip and scraped chin in the little waste basket next to the table.</p><p>“We need more information before we can make any decisions,” Steve pointed out, and Natasha noted that he carefully didn’t reply to Sharon’s outburst. “We need to figure out who Brock was working for, why he took Becca, what he was trying to achieve, and how he got his hands on Bucky.”</p><p>“How did he survive?” Peggy Carter piped up. “You said he fell off a cliff—no normal person could’ve survived that fall.” She frowned. “Your report mentioned that specifically.”</p><p>Nat eyed Steve shrewdly. She didn’t think he would’ve left Barnes unless he was absolutely sure there was no way the man could’ve survived—and yet he had. Carter was right, they did need to know how Barnes had gone from dying at the bottom of a ravine to the most feared assassin of the 20<sup>th</sup> century.</p><p>“Zola,” Steve breathed, his eyes widening with horrified realization.</p><p>Natasha frowned in confusion, but Carter—senior—nodded in silent understanding. “Azzano,” she said slowly. “Barnes was experimented on.”</p><p>Steve nodded slowly. “They must’ve given him a version of the serum.”</p><p>“That would explain a lot,” Peggy Carter agreed, and Natasha nodded in agreement.</p><p>The man she’d known had been far too strong to be merely human, and now that Steve mentioned it, she remembered a few instances where the Soldier had been injured on a mission and had shrugged it off like it was nothing—his stoicism had been held as an example for her and the others, and they had fought long and hard to emulate it, but none of them had been quite capable of doing so.</p><p>The Soldier had been able to shrug off physical injury like it was nothing—like she had seen Steve do during their longer, more difficult battles.</p><p>The Soldier being enhanced too would make <em>a lot </em>of sense. The ultimate counter-weapon.</p><p>“Until we know more,” Peggy said slowly, “I think caution and discretion are our best friends. We should keep Barnes’ survival under wraps until we know more, either from him or from other sources.”</p><p>“I guess that’s as good a plan as any,” Clint agreed from his spot in the vents, and Natasha nodded while the others made consenting noises. Steve nodded curtly before he rose from his seat and said, stiffly, “I’m going back up. If there’s—if we hear anything more from Thor and Becca—”</p><p>“We’ll let you know,” Peggy Carter nodded with a patient smile. “Go see to Barnes, Steve.”</p><p>Steve nodded jerkily and stood, but Becky Barnes immediately burst, “I’m coming with you, Steven.”</p><p>“Cece, he’s just sleeping,” Steve said beseechingly, but it didn’t seem to deter the older woman, who got to her feet and wobbled over to Steve determinedly.</p><p>Natasha watched them, feeling oddly detached, as they disappeared into the elevator.</p><p>She kept staring after them for another moment before she dropped into the seat beside Sharon and picked up an abandoned swab to clean up the little streak of blood on her chin.</p><p>“Now,” she said as the others gathered around them. “Tell me everything that happened to you.”</p><p>------------</p><h3>Fensalir, Valaskialf, Asgard</h3><h3>5 April 2016 – 9:02 a.m. ((Earth UCT+1)</h3><h3>Thor</h3><p>A hushed silence lay across the lush green gardens Thor’s father had once planted for his mother. A deep, mournful silence that draped across Thor’s shoulders like a well-worn cloak, almost as though the latent <em>seiðr</em> in the gardens sensed his downcast mood and acclimated itself to him.</p><p>He had always felt at home in these gardens.</p><p>Safe. Sheltered. Cherished.</p><p>His mother lingered in these gardens. Her touch, though distant, was what had given life to most of the things that bloomed in these fields, and he could <em>feel </em>her lingering, could <em>feel</em> her, however faintly, and took comfort in her presence.</p><p>He had long since lost track of how long he had been sitting in the gardens, his back pressed against the rough trunk of a tree with a base wider than he was tall. He clutched the looking glass that Eir had enchanted for him in one hand, casting furtive glances at it every few heartbeats, although the image remained unchanged since Eir had banished him from the infirmary.</p><p>In the end, he had only conceded <em>because</em> she had enchanted the mirror for him.</p><p>He’d not have left Becca’s side if he’d not been able to look in on her the entire time. Eir had propped up its twin beside the bed Becca slept in, so the looking glass always gave him an unobstructed view of her. He would be able to see when she started to stir, so he could be there when she opened her eyes.</p><p>So he could be the one to tell her that… to… he exhaled shakily and set the mirror down on the grass, rubbing both hands across his face.</p><p>Eir had confirmed what he had feared from the moment Becca had stumbled into his arms back on Earth. He’d not needed her to confirm it—he… he was a God of Fertility.</p><p>He had known, however instinctively, that Becca carried his child, and so he had also known that the life in her womb was no more, even before Eir had mournfully informed him that there was nothing more she could do. According to the healer, the men who’d kidnapped her had dosed with a kind of Midgardian drug to keep her compliant while they took her—a drug that had been entirely unsafe for the baby.</p><p>Coupled with the physical trauma she’d sustained…</p><p>There hadn’t been anything—there wasn’t anything they could <em>do</em>.</p><p>Thor felt oddly numb.</p><p>He’d thought, before, that he knew what grief was… that he knew what heartbreak was.</p><p>When Loki and his mother had been torn from him, he’d felt as though they had taken the very <em>air</em> that he breathed with them. For a long while, he had felt as though he had very little to live for anymore—and indeed, it seemed the very Norns themselves agreed with him, because the food he tried to consume thereafter tasted like ashes in his mouth and however much he drank, he was never able to satiate his thirst.</p><p>There had been a large part of his soul missing, but, in time, he had grown used to the constant ache and constant yearning to see them again.</p><p>He would have given anything for just one more hour with his mother, for <em>one</em> more chance to embrace Loki, but now… now he had Loki returned to him, but he had lost his firstborn, and he didn’t think it was a trade he would ever have considered.</p><p>Damn the Norns for ever treating his desperate pleas as true requests.</p><p>He found it difficult not to linger on… on what-ifs and should-haves. He had run over the events of the night a million times, had considered the many, <em>many</em> different ways he and the Avengers could have gone about rescuing Becca, had considered what forbidding Becca from doing the mission would have meant for their relationship…</p><p>There was little to be said and even less that he could do now.</p><p>Perhaps if he had not stalled, in the tower, if he had been out searching from the moment she had been taken—perhaps he’d have found her sooner.</p><p>It still would not have saved their child, but… perhaps they could have done more.</p><p>Perhaps <em>he </em>could have done more.</p><p>He <em>should</em> have done more.</p><p>He’d known Becca was… a little concerned about taking the mission, but that she’d had enough faith in Steve and the others to set those fears aside and take the mission anyway and that he probably should have insisted she defy the others, but he had believed Steve when they promised it was not, by far, a dangerous mission.</p><p>By all rights, it should not have been.</p><p>But it <em>had</em> been, and it had left his beautiful mortal in a broken, vulnerable state, and he was powerless. He’d not had much experience feeling thusly, and in this situation he had absolutely <em>no idea</em> how to handle the influx of feelings it brought.</p><p>He barely had any idea how to deal with the grief of losing their child. He did not know if he could cope with the knowledge that he could have prevented all of it too.</p><p>He both feared and anticipated the moment Becca should awaken, for he was sure she would agree.</p><p>Heimdal had told him his Midgardian friends were concerned about Rebecca, and that Loki—and <em>Norns</em>, he’d barely even <em>begun</em> to think about that—was still with them, keeping watch over the other man that had saved Becca—the man she had called Bucky.</p><p>Thor had been rather preoccupied at the time, of course, but he did vaguely recall the familiar hue to the man’s <em>hugr. </em>He wasn’t sure why Loki had accepted Becca’s orders as absolute, and he certainly didn’t know what to think of Loki’s decision to hide, to let Thor <em>grieve</em> him, but he wasn’t sure he was ready to hear it.</p><p>Thor did know that when the time came, he wished to hear the words directly from his brother.</p><p>But now… his glance strayed back to the looking glass, to where Rebecca lay, small and weak. He couldn’t deal with Loki now too—not while Becca was so weak and ill, not when he would have to tell her their child had passed when she woke…</p><p>Not when he did not know how to say the words aloud himself yet.</p><p>His eyes fell upon the looking glass again, and he noticed the slightest stir in Becca’s features. He had been sleeping beside her for the better part of four years—he knew her tells. She was waking up, and he needed to return to her side.</p><p>He reached out to touch the warm glass. “I’m here, <em>Krúttið mitt. </em>You’re in Asgard, you’re safe.”</p><p>He stood, very deliberately trying to shake off the melancholy that wrapped around him like a particularly constricting cape, and made his way back to the palace, walking through darkened hallways and deserted corridors, and praised the Norns for not putting anyone in his path right now.</p><p>He did not think he could <em>stand</em> having to speak to anyone right now.</p><p>The infirmary was, mercifully, also empty—save for Lady Eir, who eyed him meaningfully—and he was able to move into the sequestered alcove where Becca slept unhindered. He stared down at Becca and swallowed thickly, unable to stop himself from reaching out to touch her, to take her hand in his and to rest his other hand on her belly.</p><p>Their child still rested there under a spell of preservation, and would until Becca was strong enough to survive the birth.</p><p>He did not tear his eyes from her—from his brave, sweet, strong Midgardian—until he heard someone come up behind him. Sif’s warm, calloused hand fell onto his shoulder, and he looked up to find her looking at him with sadness in her eyes. “Have you slept at all?”</p><p>“No,” he admitted. “No, I don’t—I couldn’t. I can’t risk not being there when she wakes.”</p><p>Sif eyed him shrewdly before she sighed. “You need to sleep,” she insisted quietly. “And eat. Keep up your strength. You’ll need it.”</p><p>“For what?” he replied listlessly, eyes still locked on Becca’s still form. “For what, Sif?”</p><p>His eyes burned with unshed tears, and he found, not for the first time, that he couldn’t <em>breathe</em>. Becca was unconscious, in critical condition still, Loki was alive and his child—his baby—his firstborn—was <em>dead</em>. His father would probably be <em>delighted</em>.</p><p>“I should’ve…” He choked back a sob and shook his head. “I should’ve felt something. I should’ve <em>noticed</em> that something was wrong—I should <em>never</em> have let her go—”</p><p>“Thor,” Sif whispered, softly, brokenly, but he <em>couldn’t</em>, he couldn’t hear, he couldn’t <em>stop</em>—</p><p>“What good is being a god,” he cried, “if I cannot even protect my own child? My own <em>kvàn</em>.”</p><p>He barely heard Lady Sif’s hurried assurances, the empty platitudes meaningless. “It’s not your fault, Thor,” she insisted. “None of this is on you. You did everything—”</p><p>“Everything,” Thor repeated hollowly, tears rolling down his cheeks. “Everything in my power. And yet my child will never draw breath. Rebecca may never speak to me again. How am I supposed to…” He shrugged helplessly, and for all that he had been alive for fifteen hundred years, he had never felt more like a powerless child.</p><p>“How am I supposed to tell her? How am I supposed to tell her that—that our—that it’s just—”</p><p>“I don’t know,” Sif whispered. “I don’t know.”</p><p>She let him lean on her for a while, let him <em>grieve</em> and sob until he was… well, not better, but certainly more in control of his emotions. “I’ll need to go to Earth,” he croaked. “Tell our friends what happened.”</p><p>“I can do that,” Sif said kindly. “Rebecca will need you here. That is what you must be strong for. I’ll speak to your Midgardians.”</p><p>Thor looked up at his friend with an unimaginable amount relief. “Thank you.”</p><p>Sif patted his shoulder. “I know there is nothing I can say to ease your suffering, but this I can do.” She squeezed his shoulder again in support before she left, her footsteps echoing just a little in the empty space before the door fell shut behind her.</p><p>A part of him wanted to start crying again, wanted to break down and sob and rage and scream and raze the entirety of the villainous Hydra to the ground, burn it all until there was nothing but ashes left—but he could not go.</p><p>He could not leave Becca when she would need him.</p><p>He rubbed his thumb across her belly in an unconscious gesture he’d repeated a hundred times before, tears burning anew in his eyes. He would never get to sit upon his father’s throne with their child on his knee to claim her—for it <em>was</em> a girl, they’d have a <em>daughter</em>—as his own. He would never partake in the <em>vatni ausinn</em> with her, would not get to bestow the name he had chosen on her—would never get to see his daughter grow up.</p><p>He wouldn’t get to introduce his firstborn to their people and wouldn’t get to see Rebecca take on the role of a mother—one she had never let herself want before.</p><p>A role he knew she’d been looking forward to, even though it terrified her too.</p><p>Tears ran down his cheeks as he bent forward, resting his forehead against the curve of Becca’s belly. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered, both to Becca and their daughter. “I’m so sorry I didn’t protect you.” He exhaled a shaky laugh and continued, “You surprised us—your mother and I—but I was <em>so</em> happy as well. I wish I could’ve met you, my <em>bumbubúi</em>. I wish I could’ve told you everything I planned, that I could’ve… could’ve taught you all the things I wanted to. I love you <em>so much</em>, <em>b</em><em>umbubúi</em> and I’m so, <em>so</em> sorry that I couldn’t save you.”</p><p>Becca stirred again, and he pulled away, wiping a hand across his face to dry his tears before her nose crinkled as she turned her head into the pillow, huffing a tiny sigh. “—hor?”</p><p>“Yes, <em>Krúttið mitt</em>,” he whispered, lifting her hand to his lips. “I’m here.”</p><p>Her eyes weren’t quite open yet, and Thor was fairly certain she wasn’t quite awake, but her brow was furrowed, and Thor couldn’t resist the urge to smooth out the little wrinkle with his thumb. Becca huffed another sigh, but turned her face towards him nonetheless.</p><p>Thor smiled despite himself and pressed another kiss to her hand before squeezing it to his cheek, relishing in the warmth of her skin against his.</p><p>She woke slowly, gradually, and a slow, sweet smile tugged on her lips as her eyes fluttered open. “Thor,” she said again, her voice low and rough with disuse, and sweeter than anything he’d heard in hours—he hadn’t realized how afraid he had been of losing her as well, of never hearing her speak again, until she spoke again. “Hey.”</p><p>“Hi,” he said again. He pressed another kiss to her hand. “I love you. I love you so much.”</p><p>------------</p><h3>Undisclosed Hydra Base, New York City, New York, United States of America<br/>5 April, 2016 – 5:32 PM</h3><h3>Alexander Pierce</h3><p>“You <em>lost</em> the Asset?”</p><p>Pierce made sure his voice was level, perfectly <em>calm</em> as he stared down the man that kneeled at his feet. Brock Rumlow looked distinctly worse for the wear, his face swollen and beaten—and Pierce wondered how many of those bruises had been put on the man’s face by the Asset and how many by the loyal men he had sent to retrieve their rogue agent.</p><p>“It’s not my fault,” Rumlow spat. “That bitch had magical fucking back-up! And how was I supposed to know that the Asset would <em>break free</em>?”</p><p>Pierce didn’t deign that with a response and pinched the bridge of his nose.</p><p>Was a little competence <em>so much</em> <em>to ask</em>?</p><p>He was tempted to shoot the man right then and there, because he had been <em>far </em>more trouble than he was worth and Pierce was <em>disgusted</em> with Rumlow’s impulsiveness and downright stupidity, but he refrained. Barnes would’ve known it was Rumlow who’d taken her, since the Asset had ripped off his mask, and even if she didn’t, there was fucking Carter to consider.</p><p>No, it’d be far more advantageous to him to arrange for Rumlow to perish at a more convenient time.</p><p>His death could be used to secure the Avengers’ gratitude. </p><p>“Throw him in the deepest, darkest cell we have,” he told Rollins, who stood just behind Brock, holding the man down on his knees with a heavy hand on his shoulder. “I’ll decide what to do with him later.”</p><p>Rollins nodded curtly, and he and two other men dragged Rumlow—who was still spitting inane justifications for the <em>clusterfuck</em> he had left Pierce with—out of his office. “Get me Zola,” he told a technician, who cowered in the corner. “Get me a direct connection to Lehigh. We need to coordinate this mess and control the narrative before it controls us.”</p><p>He pulled out his phone and dialled the number of the only person who might give him insight into what the Avengers knew—who might slip up and tell him if they had the Soldier.</p><p>“Nick,” he said concernedly as soon as Fury answered. “I just flew back in from L.A. and I heard about Barnes’s kidnapping. She’s been a tremendously loyal employee for us in the past decade—I want to help any way I can. Is there any news?”</p><h3>To Be Continued</h3>
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